The 4 Greatest Horror TV Shows Ever, Ranked — From The Terror to Marianne

Netflix is rolling out a new horror series in March called 'Something Bad Is Going to Happen' — Camila Morrone and Adam DiMarco play an engaged couple whose final week before the wedding goes sideways in a very specific, very creepy way. While we wait to see how messy that gets, I figured it was a good time to stack up four horror shows I keep pushing on people. Different vibes, same result: you will not sleep great.

1. Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015-2018)

   Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell turned their splattery 'Evil Dead' universe into a TV series for Starz, and it rules. We catch up with Ash Williams (Campbell) decades after the original films — older, cruder, still living the bachelor life — right up until a boneheaded move wakes the Deadites back up. Ash grabs his chainsaw and partners with Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) to squash the evil he basically re-invited.

   The show nails the tone: breakneck action, shamelessly gross gore, and slapstick that somehow plays alongside real menace. Critics agreed — season 1 landed a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and seasons 2 and 3 both scored perfect marks. Also: watching Campbell do star-level work here is a not-so-gentle reminder that Hollywood should have made him a bigger deal on the big screen.

2. The Terror: Season 1 (2018)

   Adapted from Dan Simmons' 2007 novel, the first season is a historical survival nightmare spun from the true disappearance of the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus during their 1845-1848 hunt for the Northwest Passage. After departing Beechy Island and pushing toward King William Island and literal blank spots on the map, both ships get locked in ice. With officers Francis Crozier (Jared Harris), James Fitzjames (Tobias Menzies), and Sir John Franklin (Ciaran Hinds) trying to keep things together, the crew slides toward mutiny, gets wrecked by a baffling illness, and is stalked by something out on the ice that might be more than folklore.

   It is prestige period horror done right: patient storytelling, suffocating atmosphere, character work that actually matters, and real-deal scares. Season 2 shifts to an unrelated anthology story and never hit the same heat; season 1 remains the draw — grim, gripping, and genuinely terrifying.

3. Marianne (2019)

   Emma Larsimon (Victoire Du Bois) is a hit horror author who decides to end her book series about a witch named Marianne. Then a childhood friend (Aurore Boutin) shows up with a chilling claim: her mother ( Mireille Herbstmeyer) insists she is Marianne. Not long after, that friend is found hanged, leaving a warning about Emma's parents. Shaken, Emma goes back to her small coastal hometown in the French countryside — the place where her Marianne nightmares first started and where she left a lot of emotional shrapnel behind.

   This thing is brutally effective: atmospheric, stylish, and mean when it wants to be. Herbstmeyer is nightmare fuel, but the whole cast is dialed in, the writing digs into the characters, and the show is happy to go for shocking, visceral moments when talk won’t cut it. It also keeps its potency by stopping after one season. That’s not a bug.

4. Channel Zero (2016-2018)

   Four seasons, four self-contained stories, each adapted from a different creepypasta. The show changes directors, casts, and style every year, and somehow keeps landing the plane.

   Quick tour:

   'Candle Cove' (S1) follows adults revisiting a bizarre kids TV show that seems tied to the unsolved murders of five children three decades earlier. 'No-End House' (S2) puts friends inside a haunted-house art installation that does not want them to leave. 'Butcher's Block' (S3) tracks a troubled woman and her sister in a city haunted by unsettling figures from its past. 'The Dream Door' (S4) finds a couple dealing with an imaginary friend from childhood that steps back into their lives in very real, very wrong ways.

   Syfy canceled it after season 4, which is a shame, but the run we got is stellar: psychologically sharp, visually inventive, and anchored by practical effects that make the horrors feel tactile instead of weightless CG. If you want the best argument for horror-as-miniseries, this is it.

'Something Bad Is Going to Happen' hits Netflix in March. Until then, these four will keep your nerves busy.