The humble TV show is a difficult medium to make horror stories work in, but several series have managed to ascend the ranks of the genre. While countless incredible horror films have endlessly proven the potential of the horror story in movie format, the many constraints of network television have made the success of creative horror TV series far less common. That being said, there are a number of standout horror shows that have stood the test of time as genre-defining works of art.

The best horror shows take advantage of long-form storytelling to cast their protagonists deeper and deeper into despair over the course of a thoughtful story that puts character above all else. Conversely, TV is particularly suited to anthology stories when it comes to horror, with the episodic format of a series being the perfect platform to put forth a wide breadth of uniquely terrifying premises. In either case, it's become clear that a macabre fascination with scary stories has infiltrated both networks and streaming.

10 The Strain

4 seasons

One of the most frightening modern vampire stories ever conceived, FX's The Strain might be the single most undersung horror TV series around. Though not a household name, The Strain's quality is endlessly proven, consistently taking home a litany of different awards in the years it was active, including the horror-focused Fangoria chainsaw awards. Co-created by horror and dark fantasy icon Guillermo del Toro, the series revolves around a Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, a CDC researcher who is tasked to handle the outbreak of a deadly strain of vampirism.

Co-created by horror and dark fantasy icon Guillermo del Toro, the series revolves around a Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, a CDC researcher who is tasked to handle the outbreak of a deadly strain of vampirism.

The Strain blends the very real terror of a virus-based pathogen with ancient vampire ghoulishness, redefining the classic creatures of the night with a modern twist. The show features some brilliant special effects and body horror that are chilling to behold, equal parts spectacle and scares. While the underwhelming third season dilutes the series' impressive bloodline by some degree, when The Strain is at its best, there's truly nothing else like it.

9 American Horror Story

12 seasons (ongoing)

With such an encoming, eye-catching title, its no wonder that American Horror Story is one of the most impactful names synonymous with the TV horror cross-section. Not quite an anthology nor a fully serialized saga, each season of American Horror Story presents a new batch of disturbing episodes each centered around some kind of classic horror throughline, be it witches, ghosts, aliens or worse. While the many different seasons of American Horror Story vary in quality, there's no denying the cultural impact the series has had.

Able to grab big-name performers like Evan Peters and even Lady Gaga, American Horror Story never skimps out on its production value, always maintaining some excellently-rendered supernatural scares when the season requires. The performances of the rotating cast never cease to impress as they navigate the various infernal worlds laid out before them, keeping the show fresh years and years after its initial release in 2011. Having won well-over 100 awards to-date, there's a good reason why American Horror Story is so popular.

8 Penny Dreadful

3 seasons

Few genres outside of horror have the same number of famous characters that instantly summarize their values, with legendary creatures such as Dracula, Frankenstien's Monster, and the Wolf Man all being ubiquitous to scary stories. Penny Dreadful was able to capitalize on the recognition of public domain horror icons by blending them together in a devious period drama with a very modern appetite for spooks and scares. The series focuses on a clairvoyant woman's quest to find an eccentric explorer's missing daughter amidst the Gothic horror of Victorian London.

Unlike most series, each successive season of the heavily-serialized horror drama has also been met with progressively more critical acclaim, with the bombastic final series earning the show several Emmy Awards for visual design on top of its already numerous accolades.

Though its name may not have the same staying power of titles like American Horror Story, Penny Dreadful evokes the original pulp tales of its namesake with phenomenal art direction and acting. Unlike most series, each successive season of the heavily-serialized horror drama has also been met with progressively more critical acclaim, with the bombastic final series earning the show several Emmy Awards for visual design on top of its already numerous accolades. Penny Dreadful is easily in the conversation for the greatest horror series of all time.

7 Bates Motel

5 seasons

Constructing a worthy follow-up prequel to Psycho, one of the legendary Alfred Hitchcock's single best films of all time, is no simple effort. Somehow, Bates Motel managed to succeed, describing the events that would've led up to the famous slasher Norman Bates' fateful killings in the movie in the modern era. The series stars Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore as Norma and Norman Bates, the dysfunctional mother-son duo that drove the harrowing events of the psychologically-disturbing TV show.

The performances of Bates Motel drove a tangled web of deception that slowly dove further and further into the rabbit hole of Norman's fractured psyche. Just when it seems like the character is beginning to evolve in a more positive manner, the series bluntly reminds the viewer of its already foregone conclusion, making for a brilliant tug of war between despair and delicious soap opera intrigue. The acting of the series in particular has been praised, with each major cast member accruing an impressive array of award nominations solely for their Bates Motel roles.

6 Tales From The Crypt

7 seasons

The 90s may have taken horror less seriously as a medium through which genuinely palpable stories like Bates Motel could be told, but that doesn't mean the decade had no love for the gory and macabre. Enter Tales from the Crypt, one of the most recognizable horror series of all time long before general audiences had truly been sold on such. An anthology series, Tales from the Crypt told new stories every week, with the wisecracking puppeteered corpse known as the Cryptkeeper serving as a memorable host.

Tales from the Crypt was able to get away with including content that would've made most syndicated networks blush, including intense gore, sexual content, and rampant profanity.

Notably, since it appeared on HBO's channel, Tales from the Crypt was able to get away with including content that would've made most syndicated networks blush, including intense gore, sexual content, and rampant profanity. Of course, these are all the ingredients for an excellent horror story. Pepper in some absurdly famous guest stars, from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Whoopi Goldberg, and its no wonder that Tales from the Crypt had such a deathy grip on pop culture at the time of its heyday.

5 Black Mirror

6 seasons (ongoing)

Tales from the Crypt may have dominated the horror anthology TV space in the past, but in the modern era, Black Mirror towers over all others in this particular category. Another anthology series, the British-produced Netflix original presents novel horror stories with a focus on technology gone awry, including killer robots, twisted game shows, nightmarish virtual realities and invasive digital implants. Even if not every story under the series' umbrella is equal in quality, the best episodes of Black Mirror exemplify why the long-wait between season releases is so worthwhile.

Not content to simply sit back and tell scary stories for the sake of thrills alone, many of Black Mirror's tales will present engaging questions to the viewer regarding societal values and technology's place in them. It doesn't hurt that the production value, performances, and concepts of even the worst episodes are still deeply intriguing. The footprint of horror within the digital age, Black Mirror has repeatedly earned its countless Emmy and British Academy Film Awards.

4 Stranger Things

4 seasons (ongoing)

There are horror stories that are successful within the relatively niche space of the genre, and then there are horror stories that grow into pop culture icons. Stranger Things is certainly the latter, enthralling millions of viewers with its serialized brand of Lovecraftian horror glazed with a healthy dose of 80s nostalgia. The series follows four tween best friends and the adults in their lives as they grapple with the incursion of twisted, multidimensional monsters into their small town, appearing alongside a mysterious girl with powerful psychic gifts.

Stranger Things has single-handedly made household names out of the actors behind even its briefest-appearing characters while re-introducing a whole new generation to the star power of Winona Ryder. Dominating awards shows since its debut on Netflix in 2016, Stranger Things is one of the few horror series to breach the barrier of becoming a pop culture titan, leaving behind a vast wake of merchandise, branding, and public reception. It's popularity can be owed to the relatable performances, incredibly-designed villains, and jaw-dropping sequences of pulse-pounding terror.

3 The Haunting Of Hill House

1 season

In truth, the works of Mike Flanagan could encom a list of the best modern horror stories all on their own. However, if one TV series has to represent the adaptation-expert's particular brand of uneasy horror, it's The Haunting of Hill House, based on Shirley Jackson's novel of the same name. The show weaves together a tale of an estranged group of siblings who lived together in a haunted house as children, finding themselves together once again when similarly tragic and supernatural circumstances rear their heads once more.

What makes The Haunting of Hill House so effective is the fact that it's not afraid to take its time with getting to the scares, despite being a limited-run miniseries with only a single season. In that time, the heartfelt performances and eerie atmosphere of the titular house bounce back and forth between both the adult and childhood timelines to weave a twisted and tragic narrative of abandonment and decay. The series' writing in particular has been the subject of numerous horror-focused awards, carrying its weighty themes with ease.

2 Hannibal

3 seasons

As fun as supernatural tales of ghosts and psychic monsters are to feast on, it's very real serial killers like Hannibal Lecter that stick out in the mind as some of the most terrifying horror villains of all time. NBC's Hannibal understood this, leaning into a story that regales with the origins of the infamous psychiatrist cannibal. Starring Mads Mikkelsen with a Hannibal performance that very nearly outdoes that of Sir Anthony Hopkins, Hannibal engrosses with its writing and imagery.

Somehow, Hannibal is able to get away with some of the most startling, yet beautifully-shot imagery of blood and gore ever produced on network television, playing up Hannibal's obsession with high art via his victims. The ing cast is also stunning, with Hugh Dancy's Will Graham, Caroline Dhavernas's Dr. Alana Bloom, and Laurence Fishburne's Jack Crawford all developing the Hannibal Lecter mythos with deft proficiency. For its thoughtful execution and evocative art, Hannibal has consistently topped many lists detailing TV's greatest hits, let alone among horror projects in particular.

1 The Twilight Zone

5 seasons

The original horror anthology series that ruled over TV for years after its end, The Twilight Zone is undoubtedly the blueprint from which countless numbers of imitators have formed. Hosted by the affable Rod Serling, it's remarkable just how long the standard definition, black-and-white constraints of the decades-old series has still managed to affect pop culture, with individual episodes still fresh in the minds of horror writers years later. Each episode of the series presented a brand-new horror story focused around frighteningly bizarre events or worlds.

Without The Twilight Zone paving the road first, it's hard to imagine that series like Black Mirror or Tales from the Crypt could've ever manifested in the first place. ittedly, just like any anthology series, some episodes of The Twilight Zone were better than others, but as a whole, the series had a remarkable consistency. As far as horror TV shows go, it's impossible to beat the ingeniously strange plots dreamed up by The Twilight Zone.