Amazon Prime Videohas a strong collection of horror TV shows, and these are the best ones that will keep you intrigued and checking behind your closet door before you go to bed. WhileAmazon Prime has a wide collection of original TV shows, its horror offerings tend to come from other production teams.
Many of the best horror TV shows on Prime Video have been favorites of the genre for years, and sometimes decades, but there are a few hidden gems here that you may not have heard of. They can all be found in one place and offer as much fun as they do scares.
The 2023 miniseries,Amityville: An Origin Story, is a deep look into a horror story that’s so ingrained into modern horror that you may not even recognize it when it pops up. For instance, Ed and Lorraine Warren, the main characters ofThe Conjuringuniverse, were heavily involved in the 1975 Amityville Horror case.
Amityville: An Origin Storyis a four-part docuseries that explores the case and the claims made by the Lutz family. Admirably, the show takes a pretty unbiased approach to the material, never veering off into speculation, which ends up making it pretty clear that much of the story was likely made up.
The anthology horror seriesThemhandles some exceptionally heavy subject matter surrounding race in America and wraps it in a frightening and supernatural package. The first season is set in 1953 East Compton, following a black family who move from North Carolina and encounter both mundane and supernatural evil.
Season 2 jumps to 1991 and centers on a black female detective in the LAPD. The production and sense of time inThemis excellent, with both the ’50s and the ’90s coming to life, for better or for worse. Huge themes occasionally overcrowd one another, but the hostility on display feels visceral and moving.
A police procedural meets fantasy and horror in the six-season NBC series,Grimm. The show stars David Giuntoli as Detective Nick Burkhardt, who discovers he is descended from a line of “Grimms”, hunters who are tasked with fighting and defeating supernatural beasts, known as Wesen.
While the actual scares never get too frightening, the sinister atmosphere and spooky monsters make it a fun late-night watch. The series balances humor, action, and a mysterious plot as well, and the six seasons mean it’s not a monumental task to startGrimmfrom the beginning.
The StoryTelleris a little-known fantasy horror series from Jim Henson that only lasted one season. Though the focus is mostly fantasy, Henson can’t help but add some unsettling flourishes with his puppetry and understanding of myths and legends. The framing device sees an old storyteller played by John Hurt, sitting by his fire with his talking, puppet dog.
The storyteller often recounts various European folk tales, opting for more obscure ones than the more popular stories. Each story is then reenacted with live-action actors and puppets. It’s an impeccably crafted TV series with all the expected great production, but it’s the odd, and occasionally sinister, story choices that makeThe StoryTellerso unique.
Based on Dan Simmons’s 2007 novel of the same name,The Terrortakes place in the middle of the 19th century, and follows the crews of the HMSErebusand HMSTerroras they set out to discover the Northwest Passage. Instead, they encounter biting cold and a creature brought forth from Inuit myth.
There are few shows likeThe Terrorwith the ability to marry period storytelling and modern scares. There’s a loneliness and paranoia toThe Terrorthat makes it feel like a brother ofmovies likeThe Thing. The ensemble cast includes Jared Harris, Tobias Menzies, and Ciarán Hinds for just a start.
Ryan Murphy’sAmerican Horror Storycan be hit or miss depending on the season, but when the horror anthology hits, it hits hard. With a recurring group of actors but new characters each season (for the most part),American Horror Storystarts to feel like a bizarre menagerie where a hero one season could be a villain the next.
The series has explored haunted houses, witches' covens, mental asylums, the lost Roanoke colony, and more. Nothing is too strange for Murphy andAmerican Horror Story, and even when a season flops, it’s satisfying to know that there’s still someone willing to plumb the historic and weird depths of the horror genre.
Eva Green stars inPenny Dreadfulas Vanessa Ives, a mysterious adventurer living in a version of London in 1891, who hires Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), an American gunslinger, to help her and her friend, Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), uncover a variety of schemes and plots involving characters straight out of 19th-century fiction.
Frankenstein’s Creature (Rory Kinnear), Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney), Mina Harker (Olivia Llewellyn), Dracula (Christian Camargo), and many more characters and monsters from the sort of lurid fiction that the modern horror genre was birthed from. It’s an expertly made and acted series that merges the ridiculous and the horrific in a very satisfying manner.
A prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’sPsycho, though set in a contemporary time period,Bates Motelfollows a young Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga). As you may have guessed if you’ve seen the original film, the mother-and-son relationship is not exactly typical.
The series finds Norman struggling to cope with an undefined mental illness, and Norma attempting to protect her son from the world, and the world from her son.Bates Motelpaints an uncomfortable and dark picture of maternal relationships and does so with careful character writing and gripping suspense.
Hannibalis set years before the events of Thomas Harris' novels, which were turned into movies likeRed DragonandTheSilence of the Lambs. In this NBC series, Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) is still working as a psychiatrist, his long history of murders and cannibalism still unknown to the rest of the world.
It’s one ofMikkelsen’s best performances on TV or in movies. He manages to take bits and pieces from actors who have portrayed the doctor in early iterations, but still makes the character all his own. It’s one of the rare prequel series that explains how a villain came to be but does not take away from their legacy.
Rod Serling’sThe Twilight Zoneis a landmark in TV horror, anthology storytelling, and just television in general. Even if you haven’t seen the show, you probably still know the plots and twists of the best episodes ofThe Twilight Zone. It’s a series that has infiltrated all types of media, in every genre.
It’s also surprisingly creepy for a show that premiered in 1959. It’s in black-and-white, and the special effects border on ridiculous at times, but the haunting, slightly askew atmosphere is incredibly unsettling. That opening theme song, combined with Serling’s disembodied voice, transports you, and it doesn’t always transport you somewhere good.
