30 Horror TV Shows That Will Freak You the Hell Out

Bates Motel ended in 2017 after five seasons, but it will always rank in the horror hall of fame thanks to Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga's tense performances as a son and mother with a beyond-troubled relationship. The story builds upon the mythology laid out in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, not always successfully, but always memorably.

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The Purge movie, but make it a terrifying TV show. Both seasons of the series are available on Hulu, but beware that you may need to watch them until the end to feel a sense of calm again.

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If you're a fan of Aaron Mahnke's Lore podcast, surely you've seen the TV adaptation! It's yet another anthology series, but this time, it's monstrous and ghostly stories that have been passed down through generations.

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Dark isn't technically a horror series so much as it is a time-travel show, but it's still spooky! Go ahead, watch it without the lights on. By season three, you'll be scrolling through Instagram just to feel like you have company.

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Lovecraft Country is scary for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the abhorrent racism faced by the main characters. The actual monsters, however, aren't too spooky.

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HBO is on its fourth season of the truly bizarre Room 104 series. Each episode is a new story — think Are You Afraid of the Dark? for adults — set in a budget motel room. Some episodes are deeply unsettling, while others are just strange. Not every story could be classified as "horror," but the current season is ramping up to be scarier than its predecessors.

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Channel Zero is American Horror Story's cool young cousin. Though it's been canceled, there are four installments to dive into: Candle Cove, No-End House, Butcher's Block, and The Dream Door. While AHS is bombastic, Channel Zero is quietly spooky; it feels more like a nightmare slowly creeping up on you.

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AMC has gotten in on the horror anthology trend with The Terror, a series that combines history and horror. Season one imagines what happened to the crew of a ship that vanished in the Artic in the mid-1800s, and one can only hope the real mariners didn't face the trauma of what happens in the show. Season two is set during WWII and sheds light on the Japanese tale of the "bakemono."

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Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is no horror masterpiece, but it is a fun watch if you're in the mood for something light. If you're above the age of 12, you probably won't be traumatized.

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The Haunting of Hill House, on the other hand, is quite scary. Scarier than the ghost inhabiting the titular house, though, are the dynamics shared between the members of a once-happy family. This one might leave you in tears for a number of reasons. We're also including the new installment of Netflix's anthology here, The Haunting of Bly Manor, which will leave you chilled.

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NOS4A2 is . . . a weird one. Adapted from Joe Hill's horror novel, the series follows a girl whose unique skill puts her on the radar of a menacing force. Not everyone loved the first season of the show (especially fans of the book), but AMC renewed it for season two before calling it quits.

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One of Netflix's first original series, Hemlock Grove boasts a number of creepy characters and terrifying tales. It has only three seasons, so you can surely get through this one in a few weeks.

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"Horror" is a strong word when describing Stranger Things, but you can't deny it's a creature feature to the max. You may not be hiding under your blankie, but you will be freaked out by the entities attempting to take over a small town in the '80s.

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Perhaps more thriller than horror, Netflix's Chambers features a medical-turned-supernatural mystery. There's a lot more going on than you might anticipate from the first few episodes, so stick with it.

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Ryan Murphy's sorority slasher series (that's a mouthful) follows the young women of the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority as they and their peers get picked off one by one by a devil-masked murderer. It's more comedy than horror, so this is a good intro for people who don't totally want to pee their pants. It's only two seasons, so the time commitment is minimal.

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Monsters abound in this series, set in Victorian-era London. While Frankenstein's monster may frighten you, it's really Penny Dreadful's psychological terror that will get your heart pounding. Josh Hartnett doesn't hurt, either. All three seasons are available on Showtime.

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Guillermo del Toro and Carlton Cuse developed this gruesome drama for FX; it begins when a CDC agent (Corey Stoll) is called to investigate a plane full of dead passengers. It only gets creepier from there. A word of warning: The Strain is one of the goriest shows on TV (in a good way), so it's definitely not for the faint-hearted.

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MTV's reboot of Wes Craven's iconic horror film franchise follows a group of teens who find themselves smack in the middle of a psycho's murderous rampage. It's not as chilling as the original movies, but it'll probably inspire you to make sure your doors are locked several times before you go to sleep at night.

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The Walking Dead is more about human relationships than scary zombies, but there are still truckloads of walkers. The series's popularity has waned over the years, but it's still good for a jump-scare every now and then . . . and maybe a good cry.

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The Walking Dead's spinoff may not be quite as scary as its predecessor, but how scary can it be when the main characters spend most of their time on a boat? This is true for the earlier seasons, anyway. If you've already made it through both Walking Dead shows, tune in for the new spinoff, The Walking Dead: World Beyond.

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SyFy's Z Nation is a postapocalyptic thriller set three years after zombies have ravaged the world. It's not as bleak as that other zombie show you might be thinking about, but it's just as savage.

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Thanks to all the heartbreak and drama, it's easy to forget that this show is actually about vampires. But it is! Vampires, witches, werewolves, and hybrids mean this show has at least one foot firmly planted in the horror genre.

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Same with its spinoff, The Originals. Because it's set in New Orleans, one of the most haunted places in America, it might qualify as being even creepier than The Vampire Diaries.

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The CW's longest-running scripted drama has a huge fanbase, thanks in part to the way it always seems to have a new mythical creature to combat. The show is about brotherhood and has its fair share of comedy, but I'd be lying if I said some episodes didn't freak me out.

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Fans of the 1981 classic The Evil Dead lost their collective mind when this reboot was announced. Original star Bruce Campbell reprises his role as Ash, who is forced to resume fighting Deadites after three decades. It's essentially a comedy, but there are some great jump-scares.

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Is it just me, or did Teen Wolf get darker and darker as the seasons went on? The show premiered in 2011, and while it's never been as funny as the 1985 movie, every episode wasn't straight-up terrifying. By the end of the final season, we had to go to bed with a nightlight after watching.

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Robert Rodriguez reworked his 1996 horror movie into this TV series. This time around, D.J. Cotrona and Zane Holtz play the Gecko brothers (originally portrayed by George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino), who uncover a large vampire population in a desert bar.

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Based on the Women of the Otherworld book series by Kelley Armstrong, this Canadian show revolves around a female werewolf who is torn between living a normal life and maintaining her ties with her wolf pack. If you miss True Blood, you might want to give this series, airing on SyFy, a shot.

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Thirty years after Sarah Bennett's parents are brutally murdered by a serial killer, she returns to her hometown to start over and live a quiet life. LOL! I was just kidding about the "quiet life" part; she gets tormented by her parents' killer. The show, from the Chiller network, is an anthology series, so all three seasons focus on a different story.

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There's no getting around it: American Horror Story, in its many iterations, is the granddaddy of horror shows. Ryan Murphy has tackled haunted houses, creepy asylums, covens, freak shows, hotels with hidden secrets, a dreaded summer camp, and more.

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