If the success of Squid Game has taught us anything, it’s that audiences love a good series. In the last several years, horror series have become all the rage, and Netflix has become one of the biggest homes for serial scares. From genre bending horror comedies to animated terrors, Netflix has something for anyone with a love of the greatest ghoulish genre.
Netflix jumps back into the deep end with its release of Resident Evil, what they hope to be a massive television horror property moving forward. Shows like The Walking Dead and iZombie might disappear in a flash from the service once contracts expire, but Resident Evil can provide lasting hype should the series continue. It'd be a huge win for Netflix, given the size of Capcom's fanbase. Here's hoping a second season keeps Umbrella's mysteries unfolding in the future.
New additions to the list will be added to the top monthly. And when you're done here, be sure to check out our list of the best horror movies on Netflix right now.
Please note: This list pertains to U.S. Netflix subscribers. Some titles may not currently be available on international platforms. This article is frequently amended to remove shows no longer streaming on Netflix, and to include more horror TV series that are now available on the service
Resident Evil
Andrew Dabb’s Resident Evil series adaptation isn’t the Resident Evil you know from the games at face value — but under the surface, it’s wholly indebted to Capcom’s video game universe. Lance Reddick is a tactical and stone-faced Albert Wesker, while his daughters — played by Ella Balinska and Adeline Rudolph — become the series protagonists. Dabbs writers find a way to deliver something original using the Resident Evil IP while adhering to Umbrella’s nefarious viral experimentation, hitting on all the vileness and corporate despicableness rampant throughout the games. It’s never a one-for-one adaptation like Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City, but that’s okay because there are plenty of interesting concepts from future mutations to the puzzling horrors of New Raccoon City.
Read our review of Resident Evil.
iZombie
The CW’s iZombie takes a crack at zombie storytelling that’s a bit more unexpected. Rose McIver plays a recently turned Seattle coroner’s assistant who brings justice to victims by eating their brains and using their memories for good. Everyone’s favorite thirst trap Rahul Kohli stars as McIver’s confidant, as the undead professional staves off full feral zombification by feeding on brains — in a very CW-friendly way. It’s not outright horror, but still survived five seasons for a reason. If you’re in the mood for an easier-breezier horror binge that’s friendlier than more terrifying or grotesque Netflix options, iZombie might be your new procedural addiction.
Wynonna Earp
Melanie Scrofano stars as Wynonna Earp, a great-great-granddaughter of Wyatt Earp who kills Revenants in the Canadian Rockies. She protects her hometown of Purgatory from the damned souls of reincarnated outlaws who died by Wyatt’s gun. Wynonna blasts her way through this upbeat sci-fi western complete with an immortal Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon), fighting a curse she’s inherited due to her heritage. It’s one of the more fun-filled depictions of younger generations inheriting their ancestor’s baggage, as Scrofano owns her quick-draw heroine persona with each vanquished foe.
Sweet Home
If you can embrace the scattershot nature of Sweet Home, there’s a wild Korean monster series worth an adventure. Our main protagonist moves into the apartment complex Green Home in a state of depression, which becomes a secondary problem when a creature apocalypse unfolds. Horror rules are vaguely zombie adjacent, but the monsters present resemble names like “Glutton” and “Vampire.” Residents defend Green Home from snarling, aggressive threats outside as moral compasses begin to cause distress within barricaded walls. Expect your typical horror survival scenario with a fresh coat of paint — nothing revolutionary, but a good time if you’re into a plethora of demonic beasts appearing to fit whatever scene.
Reality Z
The UK’s Dead Set got a Brazilian remake titled Reality Z. Big Brother is swapped out for a lookalike program called Olympus. It’s the same concept of contestants trapped inside their reality set fortress while a zombie virus spreads outside, except this time in Rio de Janeiro. I’ll admit that Dead Set is my favorite of the two, although the Greecian themes and costumes of Olympus are a fun touch. So if you dig Dead Set, be sure to check out Reality Z.
Black Summer
Z Nation prequel Black Summer became a surprise hit on Netflix, which aired Season 2 in June of 2021. The series — produced by frequent Syfy collaborators The Asylum — follows a special forces team as it takes on a spreading zombie apocalypse well before the events of Z Nation. Jaime King stars as a mother searching for her daughter in a story that draws inspiration from The Walking Dead and how humans are scarier than zombie foes. You know what to expect, but it’s surprisingly compelling as yet another zombie procedural that doesn’t always need zombies to convey horror.
The Walking Dead
I'll admit, my love-hate affair with The Walking Dead ended somewhere around Season 7. Too many cliffhangers and cheap character deaths that traded depth for shocks — but the show's immense popularity must be acknowledged. AMC's ratings juggernaut has all ten seasons available on Netflix, which is essential information for so many fans with more patience than myself. Read the comics if you want the superior Walking Dead experience. Or binge the series again if you're in the demographic for The Walking Dead spin-offs and eventual feature films. Executives are swimming in pools filled with cash earned from Rick and Daryl merchandise — who am I to deny the market's hunger for more?
All of Us Are Dead
Netflix is pushing all-in on the South Korean horror market regarding their television programming. All of Us Are Dead is the latest addition to their library, unleashing zombies on a heavily attended high school. What starts as a science teacher coverup becomes a catastrophic undead pandemic that makes for compelling-enough genre television. Clique statuses are thrown out the window — like uniformed bodies in the first episode — as class presidents and slacker clowns must work together to escape the apocalypse. The kids aren’t alright in this one, that’s for sure.
Read our review of All of Us Are Dead.
Archive 81
Netflix's latest bingeable horror obsession Archive 81 is based on a narrative podcast of the same name. Mamoudou Athie stars as film conservator Dan Turner, hired by mega-CEO Virgil Davenport (Martin Donovan) to restore an anonymous footage set. The tapes are Melody Pendras's (Dina Shihabi) documentary work, who died in an apartment complex known as the Visser. Session by session, Dan finds himself confronting the strange history of the Visser from shady penthouse residents, occult totems, and tantric chants that may or may not hold the key to summoning another realm's deity. Lines blur further and further each episode, successfully disorienting viewers until reality and hallucination blend into a psychologically trippy thriller about found footage. Surrender yourself to what lurks beyond our screens.
Ash vs. Evil Dead
Hollywood sure loves to beat the dead horse of a horror franchise until it becomes unrecognizable from the source material, but every so often they get it right. Ash vs. Evil Dead brings back Bruce Campbell as an older, grizzled version of the deadite-killing Ashley J. Williams. It’s plenty fun to watch a much-older Ash continue to deal with the possessed and undead, but now with Dana DeLorenzo and Ray Santiago as his trusty sidekicks. The added pairing keeps the series feeling fresh and fun, instead of a proverbial franchise corpse drag. There’s plenty of trademark Raimi blood and gore, and it’s the perfect swang song to Ash’s tale.
Black Mirror
One of those shows that got so popular it became immediately meme-able, people forget how truly effective and terrifying Black Mirror can be. Technology is a necessary evil in all of our lives, and Charlie Brooker’s critique of how it all can be used to our detriment should inspire us all to question the way tech is used against us. Episodes like “Nosedive” are so close to our existing reality that watching Bryce Dallas Howard descend into madness feels like a foreshadowing for how society will soon function, whereas episodes like “San Junipero” offer a slight glimmer of hope for the ways technology can assist us as we leave the mortal realm. Whatever you do, don’t binge the show, unless you’re in the mood for an existential crisis.
Brand New Cherry Flavor
If you liked the film Malignant, Channel Zero and Chucky’s Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion’s limited series Brand New Cherry Flavor is right up your alley. Based on Todd Grimson’s book of the same name, Brand New Cherry Flavor is a horror drama about a budding female filmmaker who moves to Hollywood in the early 1990s to make her debut feature, but ends up falling down a hallucinatory nightmare world of sex, magic, revenge, and puking kittens. Rosa Salazar absolutely shines as Lisa N. Nova, but it’s Catherine Keener’s Boro that will keep you up at night.
Castlevania
Now in its fourth season, Castlevania is a downright brutal anime-influenced adaptation of the popular Konami video game series of the same name. In this medieval horror fantasy, the last surviving member of the disgraced vampire-hunting Belmont clan and his band of merry misfits attempt to save Eastern Europe from being wiped out by the grief-maddened Vlad Dracula Tepes and his army of otherworldly beasts. Don’t let the animated medium fool you, Castlevania is bloody, vicious, and super creepy.
Netflix has confirmed it's developing a Castlevania spinoff. The new series is set in 1792 France against the backdrop of the French Revolution.
Dark
Netflix’s international fare is among some of its best offerings, and the three seasons of the German science fiction thriller, Dark, is undoubtedly one of their strongest. Running for only three seasons, Dark tells the story of the sinful past of a small German town after two children go missing, exposing the secrets and supernatural history of the area...including time travel. Dark’s name is appropriate, because this thrilling horror series is emotionally taxing, to put it kindly, due to its incredibly dark themes and storylines. Dark is one of the best overall shows on Netflix, but the need for subtitles likely contributes to its lack of public consciousness. Do yourself a favor, read the subtitles, and experience Dark.
The Haunting of Hill House
Ghost stories are hard to pull off with modern audiences, but Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House is the supernatural story perfected. Flanagan delivers a perfect balance of genuine scares, but also the necessary catharsis that draws so many fans to the genre. The horror that exists in Hill House is not reserved only for undead spirits, but also trauma, grief, mental illness, dishonesty, and generational turmoil. Flanagan cares less about overloading with jump scares or high-octane terror and instead focuses on a sense of dread that creeps underneath your skin, and stays there, a constant reminder that the true horror of Hill House is that the things that haunt us are not confined to a single house.
Midnight Mass
While we’re on the subject of Mike Flanagan, his newest series Midnight Mass was the talk of the Halloween season. A struggling and isolated small town is thrown into a renewed religious fervor after a charismatic albeit mysterious priest arrives and brings unexplainable miracles. Flanagan uses horror as a vehicle to explore themes of sorrow, mortality, faith, and finding hope when all feels lost. The series is inspired by Flanagan’s own experience as an altar boy and finding sobriety later in life, and is home to some of his most terrifying characters yet. (I’m looking at you, Bev Keane).
Santa Clarita Diet
Canceling this series after three seasons is one of the biggest mistakes Netflix has ever made and this is a hill I will happily die on. Drew Barrymoore and Timothy Olyphant star as a married couple of realtors named Sheila and Joel living a run-of-the mill upper class life raising their teenage daughter in Santa Clarita, California. Everything changes after Sheila inexplicably dies but upon consuming human meat, finds herself looking and feeling better than ever before. The hijinks of this family trying to keep Sheila’s living zombie needs a secret really hit its stride in season 2, with the third season ending on the highest possible note, but a frustrating cliffhanger after Netflix canned the show in 2019. Regardless, it’s a wonderful horror comedy and deserves far more love than it received
Stranger Things
Until Squid Game came to play, the biggest success story on Netflix came in the form of Stranger Things. As fans eagerly await the fourth season due out in 2022, it’s important to remember why the show became such a cultural phenomenon. On the surface, the explosion of Stranger Things love could easily be attributed to its expression of 80s nostalgia, but Stranger Things is so much more than just a cool aesthetic. Elements of horror, science-fiction, and mystery are all intertwined in a series that’s ultimately about coming-of-age, and learning the harsh realities of the world that exist beyond childhood. There’s a reason we keep coming back season after season, and a reason why Eleven costumes still dominate every Halloween season. Let’s face it, Stranger Things is legitimately wonderful.
Supernatural
2020 was a hard year for all of the obvious reasons, but it also marked the end of Supernatural’s 15-year run. This would be a lot more tragic if it weren’t for Netflix having all 15 seasons Sam and Dean Winchester’s adventures, hunting monsters, demonic creatures, and other supernatural entities. Supernatural lasted as long as it did thanks to its absolutely perfect balance of humor, horror, and family drama. Supernatural is also responsible for one of the most loyal fandoms in television history, which allows for an existing and welcoming community for anyone looking to get into the show all these years later.
Two Sentence Horror Stories
Originally a CW show, Two Sentence Horror Stories definitely picked up a bigger audience after making its way to Netflix. With two seasons currently available, the anthology horror series covers a wide range of fears from the supernatural to the uncomfortably real. Each episode is the full exploration of, you guessed it, a two sentence horror story. As with all anthologies, some episodes are better than others, but at only 20-minutes each, a show like this is perfect for horror fans who want to pick and choose which stories earn their time. Don’t be afraid to binge it, because a third season is due out in January on the CW and will wind up on Netflix shortly after.
How We Pick the Best Horror TV Shows on Netflix
We've combed through the Netflix lineup for the most varied horror lineup we can find. The goal is to spotlight both original series like The Haunting of Hill House and Castlevania and popular TV fare like Bates Motel and Supernatural. The goal is to have something for horror fans of all tastes, whether you prefer your horror to focus on the mystical, undead zombies and monsters, or good, old-fashioned man.
Best Movies on Netflix by Genre:
