The Scariest TV Shows Of All Time

Whether we’re talking about classics like The Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt, and Twin Peaks, or more modern entries like Hannibal or Stranger Things, the truth is scary TV shows offer a distinctly different appeal than scary movies do. A horror movie has around two hours to set up a sufficiently scary plot with high enough stakes to get your blood racing, plus introduce you to your cast of characters, and then orchestrate the horrible things that will happen to them. Scary movies also have the added benefit of a cold, dark movie theater with a top-notch sound system, both of which are indispensable for a horror experience. Even if you’re watching a horror movie at home, it’s more likely to be a lights-off, everyone-be-quiet affair than if you were watching, say, 30 Rock. To top it all off, if you can fund it, you can pretty much make a movie about anything.

Scary TV shows, though, adhere to different guidelines. Nearly anything that’s on television will have to be at least be signed off by the network. Unless it’s on a commercial-free network like HBO or Showtime, or a streaming service like Netflix, a showrunner will have to account for regular commercial breaks. Plus, the nature of the medium means you have to create shorter episodes, but balance them with longer story arcs. However, as recent horror success A Quiet Place shows, the more limiting a horror story is, the scarier it can be.

For years, showrunners interested in horror have adapted the TV format to their advantage. For instance: a TV show has more time to set up scary plotlines, without having to rely on cliché (yet effective) jumpscares. They can lettension build up longer, which will only translate to bigger payoffs. Additionally, while many scary movie franchises get more and more bland as sequels and spin-offs abound, scary TV shows know from the start that they will need to work with a premise that can last at least an entire season.

So of all of the scary TV shows out there, which ones are most worth your time? Below is a list of some of the scariest TV shows of all time. Proceed with caution.

Dark

Air Dates: December 1, 2017 - Present

Network: Netflix

Best Episode: "Lügen" (December 1, 2017)

When trying to explain this mysterious German sci-fi show, it helps to compare it to two American shows: Twin Peaks and Stranger Things. Dark is about the search for a few teenagers who disappeared from a small, woodsy town, replete with unexplainable supernatural horrors. The show is also (at least partially) set in the ‘80s, and the source of the town’s mysterious occurrences is a nuclear power plant. However, the show is darker and moodier than Twin Peaks and Stranger Things; it forges a new, complicated—and decidedly more European in style—path for these familiar storylines. The result is a show that’s fun to watch in the same way Westworld is fun to watch: you’ll be a little confused, very intrigued, and just shaken up enough to start the next episode.

Penny Dreadful

Air Dates: May 11, 2014 - June 19, 2016

Network: Showtime

Best Episode: “The Blessed Dark” (June 19, 2016)

Part Victorian novel adaptation, part psychological thriller, and part horror story mashup, Penny Dreadful is a show for true horror nerds. The show is a dedicated reimagining of some of the literary world’s greatest monsters—Dorian Gray, Frankenstein and his monster, and Dracula, among others—and how they would wreak havoc on Victorian England if they were all real, knew each other, and lived on the same timeline. Creator John Logan is both playful and respectful of the classic characters he brings to life, but is also demonstrably dedicated to creating a constantly dreadful and unpredictable atmosphere. Coupled with star performances from Josh Hartnett, Rory Kinnear, and Eva Green, Penny Dreadful cements itself as one of the most original scary TV shows in recent memory.

Stranger Things

Air Dates: July 15, 2016 - Present

Network: Netflix

Best Episode: "Chapter Six: The Monster"

The release of Stranger Things during the summer of 2016 was without a doubt one of the biggest pop culture moments of the year. On paper, it sounds pretty corny: a group of middle-school aged kids in the ‘80s unleash a monster into the human world while playing a board game. To the show’s credit, the monster, a.k.a. the Demogorgon, is not the best part of the show. Sure, it’s gross as hell and might give those with weaker compositions a few nightmares, but the main reason the show works as well as it does is its ability to achieve a very dangerous, yet emotional atmosphere. This tone is informed by its time period, but also by the quality of the actors, including Winona Ryder and David Harbour. The real stars, though, are the kids, who keep that tone and will undoubtedly continue to carry the show for as long as the hype coninues.

Black Mirror

Air Dates: 2011 - Present

Network: UK’s Channel 4 (2011-14); Netflix (2016 - Present)

Best Episode: “San Junipero”

Showrunners Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’s Black Mirror is an anthology series styled in the shadow of The Twilight Zone, extrapolating from the latter’s tendency to use the anthology format to tell controversial, bizarre stories that wouldn’t fit neatly into a more conventional plot. Black Mirror’s modern twist, of course, is that the series explores humanity as it relates to technology, and how drastically relationships, politics, and basic rules of society might change in the near future if we allow our dependence on tech to continue to go unchecked. The show has a distinctly cynical view of humanity, and although this can sometimes lead to simplistic episodes, when Black Mirror gets it right, they get it chillingly right. Episodes like the Emmy-winning “San Junipero,” “The Entire History of You,” and “USS Calister” exemplify the series’ potential for horror by using the time-honored horror tradition of injecting terror into something relatable and commonplace.

Air Dates: July 13, 2014 - September 17, 2017

Network: FX

Best Episode: "Creatures of the Night" (August 31, 2014)

Based on the trilogy of the same name by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, and boasting a pilot directed by sci-fi master and Oscar-winner del Toro himself, The Strain is kind of a mashup of 28 Days Later and Dracula. The show centers around Dr. Goodweather, a high-profile doctor in New York City who is charged with investigating a mysterious airplane accident: by the time the plane landed, everyone in it was dead. Goodweather and his team quickly discover that the deaths were the result of a quickly-spreading virus that mimics vampirism and threatens the entire planet. The show is funny, gory, and, most memorably, invented a wholly original look for vampires that was pretty refreshing.

The Jinx: The Life and Death of Robert Durst

Air Dates: February 8 - March 15, 2015

Network: HBO

Best Episode: "Chapter 6: What the Hell Did I Do?" (March 15, 2015)

This fascinating true crime docuseries focuses on the perturbed life of Robert Durst, a real estate heir who found himself in the middle of a series of three gruesome murders between 1982 and 2001. Director Andrew Jarecki has a particularly odd relationship with Durst; before The Jinx, Jarecki had directed All Good Things, a 2010 fictional movie inspired by Durst’s story. Durst liked that movie so much that he granted Jarecki the first series of interviews he’d ever granted any journalist. The documentary draws from these, as well as archival interviews, reenactments of the murders, and news footage to trace a shocking, complicated story of a sociopath who is somehow involved in the deaths of three people, if only because he knew them all. Although the doc leaves the viewer to draw their own conclusions, the scariest part is just how close it flies to the sun: Durst was arrested for one of the three unsolved murders in 2015, due to evidence uncovered in the doc. He is currently awaiting trial.

Dead Set

Air Dates: (October 27 - 31, 2008)

Network: E4, Netflix

Best Episode: “Episode 5” (October 31, 2008)

It’s not revolutionary to admit that the concept of reality television is a little scary; the extraordinary first season of UnREAL explored all the behind-the-scenes amorality that make the genre what it is. Dead Set, which comes from the mind of Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker, is a little like if you added zombies to UnREAL. Filmed on the real set of Big Brother, Brooker cast former Big Brother participants in his five-part limited series that forced the typical narcissistic reality TV show “celebrities” to deal with a zombie invasion. The finale was broadcast on Halloween in 2008. Beside being a great and original zombie show, it’s also an interesting blueprint for Brooker’s Black Mirror; his heavily critical view of reality TV previewed the cynicism and dark humor with which he explores our relationship to technology in the more popular anthology series.

Hannibal

Air Dates: April 4, 2013 - August 29, 2015

Network: NBC

Best Episode: “Mizunomo” (May 23, 2014)

Everyone knows the Hannibal Lecter character from Silence of the Lambs, but there’s much more—four novels, in fact—to this cannibal’s story. The question was, how would you adapt this uniquely terrifying yet fascinating character if you didn’t have the rights to the most famous installment? Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller answered that question by focusing on the psychology of Lecter, and the choice proved to be a deeply fertile one. In effect, Fuller turned the idea of Lecter upside down by crafting the show around his relationship with frenemy Will Graham, played by Hugh Dancy. The result is a show as gory and raw as it is elegant. For a guy who was born to play villains, Mads Mikkelsen delivers a truly outstanding performance, only bested by Dancy’s ability to counterbalance him.

Crazyhead

Air Dates: October 19 - November 23, 2016

Network: Channel 4, Netflix

Best Episode: “A Pine Fresh Scent” (26 October 2016)

Although the show consists of just six episodes (it was unfortunately cancelled after just one season), creator Howard Overman (who also was the brains behind that other great British comedy/sci-fi series, Misfits) creates an unmistakably unique world in Crazyhead. Dubbed “the british Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” this genre-defying horror/comedy centers around two 20-something girls who have been raised to believe they have mental health problems because they see demons and monsters… except these demons and monsters are actually real, and they’re the only two people who can hunt and kill them. The show brings us along for the ride as they learn about their own powers and the supernatural forces that govern the world around them.

Les Revenants

Air Dates: November 26, 2012 - Present

Network: Canal+, Netflix

Best Episode: “Camille” (November 26, 2012)

Think of the concept of this French series as a slight riff on the central premise of The Leftovers, except with an even darker, more Lynchian mood. Whereas in the latter, two percent of the world’s population inexplicably disappears, in Les Revenants, a small number of previously dead people inexplicably come back to life. The “zombies” do not remember being gone, and the show explores how those who remained living react and deal with the sudden reappearance of the dead. It takes a decidedly eerier path than The Leftovers, but both shows share an intelligent and intricate approach to storytelling, one that makes Les Revenants both ominous and deeply sad. Les Revenants is like a puzzle you’re scared to finish, but you still stay up all night looking for the missing pieces. (Disclaimer: if you’re watching on Netflix, make sure you’re watching the French version and not the American remake of the same name, which is, to put it bluntly, not very good).

The Twilight Zone (1985-1989)

Air Dates: September 27, 1985 - April 15, 1989

Network: CBS

Best Episode: "Nightcrawlers" (October 18, 1985)

In typically unoriginal fashion, TV producers have twice tried to re-launch Rod Serling's history-making The Twilight Zone for modern audiences—the less said about the dreadful second attempt (hosted by Forest Whitaker in 2002) the better. The first effort, braved in 1985 by CBS, fared much better, though rampant mediocrity and, even worse, occasional awfulness was indeed apparent.

Twilight Zone '85 achieved creative success a surprising amount of times, never meeting its predecessor's tier of brilliance, but that's OK—there can only be one Rod Serling. The revival benefitted most from bringing in master filmmakers and wisely picking stories from acclaimed writers (Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Stephen King) to adapt.

And quite a few episodes remain chilling as fuck today. “Nightcrawlers,” directed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist), is a real knockout, showing a mentally disturbed Vietnam veteran's battlefield nightmares violently manifesting themselves in a roadside diner; “Examination Day” depicts a world where little kids are terminated for being too smart; and the creepy “Something In The Walls” turns an asylum's wallpaper into shrink wrap for ghosts.

American Horror Story

Air Dates: October 5, 2011 - Present

Network: FX

Best Episode: "Pilot" (October 5, 2011)

We know what some of you are thinking: There's only been one American Horror Story episode so far, so how in the hell is one of TV “scariest”? To which we'll succinctly reply with, “Yeah, but did you see that episode?”

Still in its infantile stages, FX's wildly ambitious new genre hour went for broke in its pilot, effectively pilfering from The Shining (twin ghost kids, an old woman seen as a young hottie by the male protagonist) and executing a few dynamite set-piece—the flashing lights/glimpsed demon bit in the basement is one of television's freakiest sequences in quite some time.

Can the Ryan Murphy-backed American Horror Story sustain the pilot's chills and off-kilter dread for 13 episodes? We'll all have to tune in to find out, but one's thing for sure: American Horror Story tackles the haunted house motif with perverse bite, no fears of narrative darkness, and an unpredictably subversive aesthetic.

Werewolf

Air Dates: July 11, 1987 - August 21, 1988

Network: FOX

Best Episode: "Nightmare At Braine Hotel" (November 8, 1987)

If you're going to produce a TV show about werewolves, you can do much worse than having Rick Baker on the creative side. A makeup artist extraordinaire, Baker is the prosthetics mastermind responsible for the man-to-lycanthrope transformations in 1981's An American Werewolf In London (for which he won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Makeup) and Michael Jackson's “Thriller” video (1983). The fact that he whipped up Werewolf's creature looks immediately gave the show real industry cred.

And, wouldn't you know it, the wolf effects are the best thing about the one-season-surviving FOX series. Werewolf is a fun, Incredible Hulk-styled adventure, about a normal guy who becomes all wolfy and seeks out the O.G. were-man to rid himself of the curse; on his journey, he encounters other werewolves, engaging in hairy smackdowns with them all—a regular per-episode occurrence that ensured viewers would see as much of Baker's work as possible. He didn't disappoint.

In Search Of...

Air Dates: September 1976 - March 1982

Network: Syndicated

Best Episode: None in particular

Unsolved Mysteries might be the more recognizable show, but In Search Of is the true originator of the probe-into-strange-phenomena television format. The creators of this oft-forgotten series knew something that later shows such as Unsolved Mysteries and Sightings have milked: Reality can be more terrifying than anything Hollywood's craziest minds could ever imagine.

So can Leonard Nimoy, the show's odd-looking host who'll forever bring to mind Star Trek's discomforting Spock. Getting Nimoy to drive In Search Of was the hook needed to pull in genre fans; populating each episode with insightful explorations into such unexplained topics as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and Amelia Earhart's disappearance is what made them come back on a regular basis. And, back in the late '70s, Bigfoot and Nessie weren't the ridiculous farces they are today, thus seeing them on In Search Of was the stuff of nightmares.

Goosebumps

Air Dates: October 27, 1995 - November 16, 1998

Network: FOX Kids, The Hub

Best Episode: "Welcome To Dead House" (June 29, 1997)

Before one can graduate to the advanced, grown-up horrors of author such as Stephen King and Jack Ketchum, budding scare enthusiasts must endure the PG-rated thrills conceived by R.L. Stine. From 1992 to 1997, Stine's Goosebumps book series gave kids their very own nightmare factory—62 novels' worth of monsters, ghosts, and demons, to be exact. So it was only natural that Goosebumps would be adapted into an anthology TV show for the youth—their very own Twilight Zone.

Using Stine's plots, the televisionseries Goosebumps supplied the frights in humble portions—it's a kids show, after all. In that pre-legal-age realm, though, it's a hoot. Goofy yet ominous episode titles such as “Night Of The Living Dummy” and “Say Cheese And Die” exemplify the Goosebumps spirit: Scare the kiddies, but also keep the fun intact.

Dead At 21

Air Dates: June 15, 1994 - September 7, 1994

Network: MTV

Best Episode: "In Through The Out Door (Part 2)" (September 7, 1994)

Pat yourselves on the back if you remember MTV's Dead At 21. How obscure is the show? It's not even available as a Region 2 import DVD. Created by Frasier producer Jon Sherman, Dead At 21 interrupted MTV's regularly scheduled programming at the time (music videos, reruns of awards shows) to tell a bleak, dystopian, and youth-driven saga. Jack Noseworthy starred as Ed Bellamy, a fun-loving, brainy guy who, on his 20th birthday, learns that doctors put a chip into his skull when he was born that makes him a genius, but will also kill him once he turns the big 2-1.

And, spoiler alert (though who knows if anyone will ever get the chance to see the show ever again), he dies right when he hits the legal age. Obviously lasting only one season (again, dude ceases to live), Dead At 21's final episode completely shattered the minimal audience's expectations; we figured Ed would make it out alive, as would his sexy friend Maria, but they both lose, big time.

Throughout its 13 episodes, Dead At 21 ratcheted up the tension with, in the spirit of MTV, a punk-rock sensibility. It's worthy of placement here simply for having one of the most downbeat endings in cable television history.

Sightings

Air Dates: April 17, 1992 - 1997

Network: FOX, Syndication, Sci-Fi Channel

Best Episode: None in particular

Not all that much different than Unsolved Mysteries, FOX's Sightings followed a similar structure—testimonials and reenactments of real-life abnormal events—but didn't pose as many questions. The five-year series was comparable to 20/20, presenting journalistic reports of weird goings-on, and with that tons of low-budget, faux alien encounters that impacted with the off-kilter zest of an oddball student film. By episode's end, the real world always felt a bit less normal, and the comfort of everyday life seemed much more oblique.

Dexter

Air Dates: October 1, 2006 - Present

Network: Showtime

Best Episode: "The Getaway" (December 13, 2009)

Lately, the scariest thing about Showtime's Dexter is how uneven it's been, with too many lame side characters getting overzealous storylines and a disappointing fifth season that progressed nothing in Dexter's (the great Michael C. Hall) big picture arc. But there's a reason why we're sticking with Miami's noblest serial killer: When Dexter is on point, it's one of TV's best shows, hands down. And a major factor in that excellence is Dexter's willingness to stage gruesome kill scenes worthy of any horror-loving gorehound's approval.

As the title character, Hall is never less than electric, nailing the character's inherent shyness and social awkwardness and occasionally revolting viewers in the show's cold-hearted murders. When Dexter/Hall drives that knife into his strapped-down victims' chests, the impact is fierce—the maniacal satisfaction in his eyes translates horrifically.

The fact that Dex is the show's hero plays into how Dexter blurs the line between goOd and evil; as for his per-season rivals, though, they're best served wholeheartedly cold. Season One's Ice Truck Killer and Season Four's Trinity (brilliantly played by John Lithgow) rank amongst the most disturbing serial slayers in both TV and movie history. And you know why? Because they don't crack predictable sexual puns (we're talking to you, Masuka) and actually bring something to the table (sorry, Batista).

Monsters

Air Dates: October 1, 1988 - April 1, 1991

Network: Syndicated

Best Episode: "Portrait Of The Artist" (October 8, 1989)

Checking out Monsters episodes today, the horror-minded anthology series doesn't entirely hold up. Executive producer Richard P. Rubinstein (one of Night Of The Living Dead's original backers) and his colleagues designed Monsters as a comedic answer to Tales From The Darkside, which was also produced by Rubinstein. Each episode featured a different creature for a villain, and the scares were always punctuated by ironic humor.

Back in the late '80s, the jokes might've landed better, but these days on the Chiller network, Monsters reruns don't always induce laughter, at least not the intended kind. But creature effects are consistently grotesque and out there. Over the course of three seasons, Monsters ignored good taste with overgrown aliens that look like vermin (“Parents From Space”), a plant that morphs into a sex addict (“The Mandrake Root”), and a corpse that sucks the badness out of whomever touches it (“Sin-Sop”).

Tales Of The Unexpected

Air Dates: March 24, 1979 - May 13, 1988

Network: ITV

Best Episode: "The Landlady" (April 21, 1979)

Airing exclusively in England, Tales Of The Unexpected was catnip for fans of Roald Dahl's literature. Dahl, for the uninformed, was the author behind some of the scariest children's stories ever written (Charlie And The Chocolate Factory), as well as less frightening but equally memorable works (Fantastic Mr. Fox, James And The Giant Peach).

For Tales Of The Unexpected, based on many of the author's short stories, Dahl prefaced the episodes with “What inspired me to write this story” monologues, providing a glimpse into his eccentric mind. And over a nine-season stretch, audiences saw firsthand just how bizarre the guy's brain worked. In “Georgy Porgy,” a sleazy preacher sees naked women as he speaks; “Vengeance Is Mine, Inc.” finds a couple of has-been actors terrorizing a particularly harsh critic; and “Never Speak Ill Of The Dead” shows what can happen to an unfaithful wife.

Dahl wasn't a full-fledged horror writer, though, so, keeping with the tradition of his writings, Tales Of The Unexpected featured several upbeat episodes, but the ones that darkened the mood did so in peculiarly demented manners.

The Hitchhiker

Air Dates: 1983 - 1991

Network: HBO, USA

Best Episode: "Last Scene" (March 25, 1986)

Before HBO got into the Tales From The Crypt business, the cable network cut its horror anthology teeth, so to speak, with The Hitchhiker, which was essentially the series Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling would have made if he'd worked with a cable network and had a narrative obsession with blood and tits. We've got your attention now, huh? Thought we would.

Bookended by an admittedly uber-lame, bootleg Serling (hitchhiker Page Fletcher), HBO's sordid exercise in genre storytelling threw morality out the window in every episode. Boobies flashed consistently, the violence reached extreme levels, and pleasantries were non-existent by the half-hour's end.

“Man's Best Friend,” one of the gorier episodes, has a disgruntled man send his mean-spirited dog off to kill his ex-wife's friends; a hot blonde actress tries to evade an actual killer on the set of a cheesy slasher flick in “Last Scene”; and, accentuating the show's perverse morbidity, “Cruelest Cut” watches a horny dude fall for a prostitute he suspects could be also be a serial killer. Haven't we all been there?

Freddy's Nightmares

Air Dates: October 8, 1988 - March 12, 1990

Network: Syndicated

Best Episode: "Safe Sex" (May 28, 1989)

Once Wes Craven's A Nightmare On Elm Street crushed the box office in 1984, a new horror icon was officially born. Only, in Freddy Krueger's case, the genre's latest poster-killer had an actual personality to go with his inventive murder tactics. So it didn't take long for crafty executives to recognize the star qualities in actor Robert Englund's portrayal—emphasized by cocksure arrogance and snappy one-liners—of the burned pedophile turned homicidal dream inhabitant.

Thus came Freddy's Nightmares, an anthology series that cast Englund's Krueger in the same way Alfred Hitchcock did himself for Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Krueger hosts, wisecracks the episode's plot before the story begins, and then closes the show in typically snarky fashion. In addition to Krueger himself, the connective tissue between all of the Freddy's Nightmares episodes was the location, that of fictitious Springwood, Ohio (the setting of Craven's Nightmare). Not all of the “nightmares” were all that good, but the cash-in series hits its desired scary marks often enough to warrant a recommendation.

Freddy's Nightmares was at its best whenever Krueger injected himself into the stories, namely “Photo Finish", in which Fred ghoulishly fucks around with fashion models. Clearly, the man of the hour knew when to get proactive.

True Blood

Air Dates: September 7, 2008 - Present

Network: HBO

Best Episode: "I Will Rise Up" (August 16, 2009)

Since the days of Bram Stoker, vampires have always been horror's sexiest monsters. It's all in their manner of attack: biting a person's neck, sucking their blood in a way that'd leave a major hickey if not for the fangs. True Blood, the HBO hit based on author Charlaine Harris' The Southern Vampire Mysteries book series, is the ultimate realization of that bloodlust.

Set in the fictional Louisiana town of Bon Temps, the Alan Ball-created guilty pleasure posits a world where vamps are integrated into society and their special blood is used as an aphrodisiac—“fang-banging” is considered to be the kinkiest of sexual predilections.

Though they're more about sex than violence, the undead on True Blood aren't totally immune to scaring audiences. Imagine if some creature of the night twisted your neck like a pretzel during doggy-style intercourse, or if a coven of witches recruited your girlfriend into their fold. Given the perverted influences of Harris and Ball, though, she'd probably cast a spell that makes you look more like Alexander Skarsgard.

Nightmares And Dreamscapes: From The Stories Of Stephen King

Air Dates: July 12, 2006 - August 2, 2006

Network: TNT

Best Episode: "The End Of The Whole Mess" (July 19, 2006)

As prolific of a novel writer as he is, Stephen King is also one of genre fiction's most decorated short story writers. Several of his shorts have been expanded into movies, such as Children Of The Corn, The Mist, Stand By Me, and The Shawshank Redemption, but there's still an abundance of material available for live-action adaptation.

In 2006, the folks at TBS took advantage of King's endless output and launched Nightmares And Dreamscapes, an eight-episode series that included five stories from King's same-titled anthology book. Were King's fans pleased? More so than they were about shitty misfires like Maximum Overdrive and Thinner, but not exactly ecstatic.

”Crouch End”, for example, ruins a perfectly eerie King yarn, about two newlyweds stranded in a town where rat-faced entities maraud around, with laughably cheesy visual effects. But there are a few triumphs in the bunch. “The End Of The Whole Mess” impressively nails the apocalyptic tension of King's story, and “The Road Virus Heads North”, in which an evil painting causes people to croak, is agreeably stone-faced in its bleakness.

Carnivàle

Air Dates: September 7, 2003 - March 27, 2005

Network: HBO

Best Episode: "Hot And Bothered" (November 16, 2003)

HBO, whether the network's executives cared or not, pissed millions of people off when it cancelled Carnivàle after its second season in 2005. One of the channel's densest shows ever, the Daniel Knauf-created oddity introduced dozens of fascinating characters over its 24-episode stretch, using said folks to deliver a story drenched in heavy, good-versus-evil mythology. Naturally, Season Two's final episode did little to answer all of viewers' questions—heated inquiries that still remain unattended.

Which makes Carnivàle a tough show to revisit, since one does so knowing that hardly anything will get resolved once it's all said and done. Still, Knauf's highly ambitious brainchild was damn good while it lasted. Set in an effortlessly eerie carnival, the show blasted viewers with strange hallucinations, religious unease, and a disconcerting dwarf (Michael J. Anderson) who looked like he time-traveled from the set of Tod Browning's 1932 off-putter Freaks.

Kingdom Hospital

Air Dates: March 3, 2004 - July 15, 2004

Network: ABC

Best Episode: "Thy Kingdom Come" (March 3, 2004)

Had Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier's 1994 mini-series Riget (translation: The Kingdom) been a longer-form program, we'd have included that on this countdown, not the Americanized version, Kingdom Hospital. Far superior, von Trier's original saga about a supernaturally infected hospital is a freaky, at times random, and often funny oddity; the U.S. version, spearheaded by the one and only Stephen King, retains some of Riget's unconventional force, but not enough.

Kingdom Hospital isn't without its gloriously demented highlights, though. Exploiting his interests in black comedy, King littered the 13-episode series with bizarre flourishes, some lifted directly from von Trier's incarnation, including a guy who thinks in German, a headless person roaming the halls, and death personified as a creepy little girl. In terms of weirdness, Kingdom Hospital is filled to the brim.

Friday The 13th: The Series

Air Dates: October 3, 1987 - May 26, 1990

Network: Syndicated

Best Episode: "Scarlett Cinema" (February 20, 1989)

Who comes to mind when someone mentions Friday The 13th? Hockey-masked slasher Jason Voorhees, of course. Well, the producers of Friday The 13th: The Series didn't give a shit about that association outside of its profit margins. See, the show wasn't Jason's chance to investigate crimes alongside hardnosed cops, or save lives in an ER; Friday The 13th: The Series instead followed a couple of average folks around as they battled supernatural entities and searched for missing antiques. And never crossed Jason Voorhees' path.

The obvious pilfering from Voorhees' good name aside, the American-Canadian show was an interesting experiment in its own right. Predating The CW's modern-day hit Supernatural, Friday The 13th sent its protagonists to slug it out with a variety of wild foes: a killer scarecrow, tattoos that come to life, a radio that scares listeners to death, a movie camera that brings cinematic monsters into reality, and a haunted TV set are just a few of the show's evil plot-movers. All of which are way more interesting than Jason, anyway. Sorry, gorehounds.

The Evil Touch

Air Dates: June 19, 1973 - June 9, 1974

Network: Nine Network (in Australia)

Best Episode: "They"

A television show that operates in the “genre anthology” format has a great deal of leeway to experiment with styles and tones, yet it's always refreshing when one sticks to the darker side. Such was the case with The Evil Touch, an Australian production that cut right to the bleakness in all of its 26 episodes.

The show's best entries were also its weirdest: In “They”, a batshit tale about a cult, demonic kids have replaced tired adults and people can morph into ponies (seriously); “The Trial” traps a rich guy inside a carnival at nighttime, where a loony brain surgeon chases him around in hopes of performing a seemingly unnecessary lobotomy (the climax of this one can watched above). That's right: The Evil Touch, Australian for “fear.”

Kolchak: The Night Stalker

Air Dates: September 13, 1974 - March 28, 1975

Network: ABC

Best Episode: "Demon In Lace" (February 7, 1975)

Compared to the 1972 made-for-TV movie that inspired it (The Night Stalker), ABC's 20-episode-long Kolchak: The Night Stalker is undoubtedly inferior, but that's not enough to keep it off any “scariest TV shows” lists, especially not ours. Kolchak, starring the great Darren McGavin as a investigative reporter repeatedly tasked with solving supernatural crimes, was uneven at times, delving into unintentionally self-mocking plots about lizard-men and Planet Of The Apes-light primate riots.

More often than not, though, Kolchak supplied vibrant jolts, sticking with less ludicrous villains as a headless motorcycle rider and invisible aliens. OK, less ludicrous than a lizard-man, that is. Give us a break here.

Invasion

Air Dates: September 21, 2005 - May 17, 2006

Network: ABC

Best Episode: "Run And Gun" (May 3, 2006)

Timing really wasn't on the side of ABC and Invasion creator Shaun Cassidy. The sci-fi/horror series had a kick-ass premise: After a hurricane pulverizes a small Florida community, little water-based parasites worm their way into as many of the townsfolk as possible, cloning their victims into lookalike evildoers. So, yeah, it was basically Invasion Of The Body Snatchers for the prime-time TV circuit, which is awesome.

They couldn't have picked a worse time to debut, though; a month before Invasion's premiere date, Hurricane Katrina hit. In the wake of the New Orleans disaster, ABC, understandably, had to suddenly alter the show's marketing; in the end, Invasion plodded through weak ratings, and the network yanked the plug after one season.

Those who watched Invasion at the time, or who catch its reruns nowadays on the Chiller network, know that ABC shit the bed with that call. Anchored by the oh-so-sinister William Fichtner, Invasion told its dark story with panache, smacking viewers in the collective head with legit shocks and moments of palpable tension. Had ABC's recent failure V taken cues from Cassidy's unfairly canned series, we'd still have the pleasure of ogling Elizabeth Mitchell every seven days.

MTV's Fear

Air Dates: 2000 - 2002

Network: MTV

Best Episode: "Eastern State Penitentiary"

You know why shows like Ghost Hunters suck? Because the paranormal investigators involved love to overreact at every little sound, clearly playing up the situation for entertainment's sake. And, even worse, they never find any actual ghosts. The contestants on MTV's Fear, the badass reality show that the network should bring back at some point (maybe even just lock Snooki in a haunted asylum), never came across any legitimate apparitions, either, but at least their terrified reactions weren't fabricated.

The show's premise tapped into the curiosities of teenagers dumb enough to walk through creepy old abandoned buildings on Friday nights. A group of contestants were locked in a supposedly haunted locale (closed-down jailhouses, hotels, or hospitals), given night-vision cameras, and asked to individually handle dares.

Fear really kicked into scary overdrive whenever the dares came in the form of séances or reenactments; one participant on the “Eastern State Penitentiary” episode, for example, had to strap herself in a Tranquility Chair, used to torture disobedient prisoners, for a long period of time, in complete radio silence. Something we'd only do if they paid us.

Tales Of Tomorrow

Air Dates: August 3, 1951 - June 12, 1953

Network: ABC

Best Episode: "The Window" (November 7, 1952)

Classic anthology shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, both honored on this countdown, owe their existence to Tales Of Tomorrow, the original science-fiction-minded series of its kind for adults. Tallying in at 85 episodes, the ABC-produced trendsetter weaved all kinds of sci-fi phenomena—flying saucers, aliens, interplanetary research—into its half-hour stories, which might, at first, seem like measly fodder for a “scary” TV series, but we're not talking Buzz Lightyear here.

“The Invader” features a little kid whose precocious ways turn malicious, and “Plague From Space” finds a spaceship landing on Earth and emitting a deadly outbreak of disease. And, just for good horror measure, “Frankenstein” switched things up and gave Lon Chaney Jr. (a.k.a. Universal's original The Wolf Man) a chance to do his best Boris Karloff impression as Dr. Frankenstein's monster. What horror aficionado wouldn't fuck with that?

Harper's Island

Air Dates: April 9, 2009 - July 11, 2009

Network: CBS

Best Episode: "Gasp" (July 11, 2009)

Those who slept really fucked up during the summer of 2009. Whether it's the fault of the CBS network's lazy marketing strategy or just plain old, unfortunate viewer indifference, Harper's Island ran its one-season course to abysmal ratings, which is a real shame. Strongly acted and cleverly written, the Ari Schlossberg-created series channeled both old Agatha Christie murder mysteries and slasher movie tropes to present a “10 little Indians” set-up that got better as the season progressed.

The wedding of Trish Wellington (Katie Cassidy) and Henry Dunn (Christopher Gorham) brings several family members and friends to the groom's native island, where, seven years prior, a homicidal maniac slaughtered tons of folks before getting shot down by the sheriff. Or so the residents thought; Harper's Island quickly turns into whodunit riddled with corpses, killing off its good-looking cast in surprisingly gory ways and culminating in a string of twists and reveals.

Unlike most slice-and-dice horror movies, Harper's Island featured likeable characters and genuine surprises; so, naturally, it was doomed to cancellation after one season. Maybe the show would've lasted if CBS framed it as a CSI-like investigation into the island's murder—thank heavens they didn't.

Fringe

Air Dates: September 9, 2008 - Present

Network: FOX

Best Episode: "The Abducted" (November 18, 2010)

Fringe isn't widely regarded as a “scary” show, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a program with freakier visuals on the idiot box. The J.J. Abrams-backed science fiction drama trails an FBI agent (Anna Torv), an enigmatic boy genius (Joshua Jackson), and his nutty doctor of a father (John Noble) as they investigate paranormal and otherworldly happenings, all while working to keep a parallel dimension's evil version of Noble's character from bringing the apocalyptic ruckus.

It's a wide-open premise that allows Fringe to bless viewers with an assortment of strikingly bizarre imagery. Early into Season Two, for example, a shadow-man attacked a guy whose wife comes home to watch her husband disintegrate into ashes; “Marionette” (Season Three) features the pleasant shot of a mad scientist controlling his wife's dead body like a puppet with ropes and pulleys. And that's just a sample of Fringe's most heinous scenes, which once again begs the question: Why aren't you watching the show yet?

Unsolved Mysteries

Air Dates: January 20, 1987 - Present

Network: NBC, CBS, Lifetime, Spike

Best Episode: None in particular

For some, the creepiest thing about Unsolved Mysteries is the show's conceit. According to host Robert Stack, all of the show's segments are based on real-life cases, meaning every UFO encounter, supernatural occurrence, or grisly homicide “really” happened. An hour spent in front of the tube watching Unsolved Mysteries is a 60-minute span spent witnessing life's darkest side, and it's that sense of it-could-happen-to-you immediacy that gives the series its disturbing power.

But that's not what freaks us out the most about Unsolved Mysteries. For us, the show's eeriest contributions to the nightmare lexicon are its dramatizations, the reenactments of each segment's central incident. The actors were usually subpar, and the foggy camerawork lent a dreamlike quality to each one; they felt more like bad dreams than actual events.

Millennium

Air Dates: October 25, 1996 - May 21, 1999

Network: FOX

Best Episode: "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense" (November 27, 1997)

Three years into The X-Files' run of pop culture domination, series creator Chris Carter tried his hand at doubling up on the small-screen, in the form of Millennium. The outcome wasn't as successful, but the show's quality isn't to blame. Starring the ever-reliable Lance Henriksen, Millennium followed a police consultant, Frank Black, with the skill of peering into a criminal's mind, which, on the surface, doesn't sound like much of a horror trip—seems more in line with The Mentalist, no?

Henriksen wasn't tracking corporate sharks and cheating husbands, though; Millennium's weekly antagonists were of a much sicker order. The first season revolved around the pursuit of serial killers, but Season Two (its penultimate run) opened the scope up and introduced demonic forces into the mix. Darkly atmospheric, Millennium's tone worked itself quite well into The X-Files in 1999, when Carter, throwing a bone to the former's loyal fans mourning its cancellation, had Agents Mulder and Scully team up with Frank Black for an episode titled, get this, “Millennium.” And, impressively enough, Breaking Bad mastermind Vince Gilligan co-wrote it.

The Veil

Air Dates: 1958

Network: Never aired (available on DVD)

Best Episode: "Destination Nightmare"

Don't worry if you've never heard of The Veil—it never actually aired. When the show was 10 episodes into its 12-ep debut season, the collapse of its backing studio stopped production and ultimately caused the Boris Karloff-hosted anthology program to meet an early grave. But that didn't stop critics and insiders from praising what they'd already seen, a mounting buzz that led to The Veil's widespread distinction as “the greatest television never seen.”

Now available, albeit obscurely, on DVD, The Veil is definitely a worthwhile Holy Grail of sorts for horror fanatics. Amongst the show's sinister characters are a cute yet possibly dead female drifter (“Girl On The Road”), two fighting brothers getting bossed around by their deceased father (“Genesis”), and a pilot who has tragic premonitions (“Destination Nightmare”, which beat Final Destination to the punch 42 years beforehand).

The Walking Dead

Air Dates: October 31, 2010 - Present

Network: AMC

Best Episode: "Pilot" (October 31, 2010)

A television show about zombies? Any George A. Romero fanboy will tell you that, prior to AMC's The Walking Dead, such a proposition was unheard of. After all, TV producers only care about medical dramas, cop shows, and domestic sitcoms, right? Not the brave souls in the AMC offices, who continued their daring streak of green-lighting dark, cutting-edge adult dramas (Mad Men, Breaking Bad) by giving acclaimed filmmaker Frank Darabont the go-sign to adapt Robert Kirkman's beloved Image Comics title.

It's easy to see why AMC took the risk—The Walking Dead, as Kirkman lays it out, isn't about the zombies as much as its about the living characters. Led by do-gooder sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), the show's band of random survivors drives the hour-long pressure cooker, quarreling with each other while trying to stay alive amidst the flesh-eater takeover.

The first season's ratings were through the roof, but, only given six episodes to establish Kirkman's densely layered world, The Walking Dead had its fair share of issues last year, most notably a lack of tonal cohesion. But one thing that remained effective was Greg Nicotero's killer zombie makeup and gore effects, which, to hear the actors themselves tell it, reaches insane new heights in Season Two. Consider us stoked.

Supernatural

Air Dates: September 13, 2005 - Present

Network: The WB/ The CW

Best Episode: "All Hell Breaks Loose" (May 10, 2007)

On paper, Supernatural seems like a show a dude's little sister should love, not her older brother. For one, it's on The CW, a.k.a. the land of teenybopper soaps and Seventeen magazine pin-ups. And that's exactly what Supernatural stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are, two hunky actors who'd be treated as gods if they walked through an all-girl high school's cafeteria. What makes the show work so well, however, is that Ackles and Padalecki are actually anything but lame pretty-boys; having formed a seamless chemistry together, they're the perfect leads for a genuinely disturbing yet still accessible monster show.

The duo plays brothers Dean and Sam Winchester, respectively, siblings tasked with hunting down creatures, demons, and other abnormal baddies across the country. Now on its seventh season, Supernatural has sustained its intriguing narrative through rich mythology; portals into other dimensions have been opened, main characters have died and eventually resurrected, and Lucifer himself has become a major character. Not bad for a show that could've been The Hardy Boys by way of Twilight.

One Step Beyond

Air Dates: January 20, 1959 - July 4, 1961

Network: ABC

Best Episode: "The Image Of Death" (May 19, 1959)

One of the lamest marketing tactics perpetrated by folks in the horror movie business is the always annoying ploy of “based on true events.” The better, more honest phrasing would be, “based on a minor anecdote someone once told us that we decided to manipulate into our own ridiculous story.”

There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and One Step Beyond qualifies in this case. One of TV's first anthology shows, the John Newland-hosted series presented its weird tales as real-life happenings under dramatization; when you're watching an episode about astral projection (“The Long Call”), however, it's difficult to buy into any sense of realism.

Through the power of on-point storytelling, though, One Step Beyond nevertheless holds up as an often creepy little property. It's also one of the lighter shows of its kind, frequently wrapping episodes up with little to no body-counts. If you like that sort of happy-go-lucky thing.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Air Dates: March 10, 1997 - May 20, 2003

Network: The WB, UPN

Best Episode: "Hush" (December 14, 1999)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer seemingly had it all: monsters, comedy, interesting characters, talented actors, and its fair share of sexy actresses (Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Eliza Dushku, etc.). So what did the Joss Whedon-controlled show lack? The amount of viewers necessary to extend its current reputation beyond cult status. Buffy's loyal viewers, as well as the critics wise enough to hop on board, know they had something special, though, and aware True Blood fans hopefully realize that Sookie Stackhouse's universe is an inferior substitute for Buffy's creature-packed world.

Whedon and company kept the ghouls front and center throughout Buffy's seven seasons, yet no hour was as nightmarishly scary as “Hush”, the show's crown jewel of horror. In the Whedon-directed episode (which he also co-wrote), a pack of suit-wearing, Joker-crossed-with-skeleton-looking ghouls known as “The Gentlemen” come to town and steal people's voices, resulting in an ep that's predominantly without dialogue.

Scooby Doo, Where Are You?/The Scooby Doo Show

Air Dates: September 13, 1969 - October 31, 1970/September 11, 1976 - December 23, 1978

Network: CBS

Best Episode: "Jeepers, It's The Creeper!" (October 3, 1970)

Don't think that Scooby Doo, Where Are You? is “scary,” huh? Put yourself in the mind-set of a little kid. Sure, the attraction to the Hanna-Barbera-backed cartoon is the world's most lily-livered Great Dane, Scooby Doo, and his stoner best friend, Shaggy; if we're talking about a kid who's destined to become a ladykiller, there's also Velma (for the Tina Fey-loving man) and Daphne (for every other guy). And yes, we're overlooking Fred—what a tool.

The characters are cool and all, but Scooby Doo, Where Are You? is, if you think about it, a gateway into legitimate horror. Easily digestible for rugrats, Scooby Doo introduces youngsters to all kinds of monsters, ghouls, and ghosts. The scares are diluted with comedy, of course, but still, a “No-Face Zombie” is still a zombie, no matter how it's presented.

Way Out

Air Dates: March 31, 1961 - July 14, 1961

Network: CBS

Best Episode: "Soft Focus" (July 7, 1961)

Roald Dahl strikes again. Whereas Tales Of The Unexpected worked horror into its predominantly sentimental vibe, the short-lived Way Out, which preceded Tales by 18 years, was the prolific author at his most cynical and baleful.

Acting as the show's host, Dahl introduced the anthology series' unhappy episodes with straight-faced poise, a dryly comedic approach that never distracted from the stories themselves. That's a good thing, too, because Way Out's 14 installments never skimped on extraordinarily unsettling visuals. In “Soft Focus”, half of a guy's face gets erased, and the demented “Side Show” wins points with headless bodies strapped into electric chairs.

American Gothic

Air Dates: September 22, 1995 - July 11, 1996

Network: CBS

Best Episode: "To Hell And Back" (July 3, 1996)

Shaun Cassidy, the same showrunner behind the aforementioned Invasion, really can't catch a break. As much as we praised Invasion earlier in this list, Cassidy's more horror-centric ABC series American Gothic was an even better example of Cassidy's talents, yet it suffered a similar one-season fate. The former pop music star should feel proud to know that his work wasn't for naught—he's ranked quite high on Complex's esteemed “Scariest TV Shows” rundown! We're sure he's thrilled.

The honor is well-deserved. Starring terrific character actor Gary Cole as one seriously wicked villain, American Gothic kept its narrative contained to the fictional town of Trinity, South Carolina, which is ruled with an iron fist by a sheriff (Cole) with supernatural ties. The show's dark subject matter touched upon such delightful topics as rape, murder, sexual abuse, and the endangerment of children—so why didn't it last more than a single season again? Oh, that's right—because Cassidy tried something threateningly original. He gets an “A” for effort in our book.

Dark Shadows

Air Dates: June 27, 1966 - April 2, 1971

Network: ABC

Come May 2012, the Tim Burton-directed Dark Shadows movie, starring Johnny Depp, of course, will put millions of unaware heads onto one of TV's best genre shows of all time. Considering that Burton and Depp have both fallen off something fierce in recent years, however, there's a high probability of suck-age attached to the flick.

Hopefully we're proven wrong, because the original version of Dark Shadows is still a gothic blast. Technically a soap opera (but obviously nothing like those painfully melodramatic ones your mom loves), the series hits its stride once actor Jonathan Frid checked in as vampire Barnabas Collins (the character Depp will play). Along with his family of eccentrics, Barnabas confronted romance, werewolves, alternate dimensions, and witches, a vast array of antagonists that kept Dark Shadows dependably unpredictable.

Talk about potential for a mainstream horror-comedy franchise. Fingers crossed that Burton and Depp bring back their Ed Wood chemistry.

Eerie, Indiana

Air Dates: September 15, 1991 - April 12, 1992

Network: NBC

Best Episode: "Reality Takes A Holiday" (April 12, 1992)

The small-screen comedy sect has rallied behind unjustly canceled shows like Freaks And Geeks, Undeclared, and Arrested Development so effectively that their cries resulted in syndicated reruns, a minor yet still satisfying victory. In that same vein, we're here to ignite a similar campaign for Eerie, Indiana, a sort of weirdo Twin Peaks for teenagers that routinely impressed before getting axed after one measly season.

The familiar set-up of “a kid who moves into a new town” was wildly subverted over 19 episodes, each stranger than the one before it. Cameos from Bigfoot and Elvis Presley brought the tongue-in-cheek funny, and the supernatural subplots never took Eerie out of its young adult comfort zone. One episode featured a kid who goes into the nurse's office for an eye exam and leaves a zombie obsessed with homework; another showed how a young female outcast used her drawing skills to alter reality. Scary in the lightest way possible, Eerie, Indiana handled its genre quirks with uncommon intelligence.

Masters Of Horror

Air Dates: October 28, 2005 - February 2, 2007

Network: Showtime

Best Episode: "Incident On And Off A Mountain Road" (October 28, 2005)

With Masters Of Horror, Showtime executives forever earned the right to party with the Fangoria crowd. Under the guidance of genre filmmaker Mick Garris, the cable network opened up its corporate wallet and paid a slew of established and in-demand horror movie directors to try and out-do each other with an original, hour-long mini-movie. And for two seasons, fans were in their glory, even when the episodes weren't exactly up to snuff (avoid Tobe Hooper's Dance Of The Dead at all costs).

The best Masters Of Horrors hours showcased scary film vets having a blast. Joe Dante got to blend zombies and acute social commentary with the superb “Homecoming”; John Carpenter climbed out of prolonged inactivity to stage demonic carnage in the visceral “Cigarette Burns”; and John Landis nailed his previously stale combo of horror and comedy with the riotous “Deer Woman”.

Tales From The Darkside

Air Dates: October 29, 1983 - July 24, 1988

Network: Syndicated

Best Episode: "Levitation" (May 19, 1985)

In terms of its stories, the anthology series Tales From The Darkside wasn't much different from the aforementioned Monsters or HBO's Tales From The Crypt: In half-hour durations, doomed characters tried their best to overcome supernaturally determined fates, but always met grisly demises. But, unlike either of those like-minded programs, Tales From The Darkside had two characteristics working to its unique advantage.

Firstly, the show was produced and created by George A. Romero, the horror filmmaking titan behind the almighty Dead trilogy (Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, and Day Of The Dead), as well as non-zombie gems like Martin (one of the genre's most underrated vampire flicks) and the EC Comics-inspired omnibus Creepshow. Secondly, and most crucially, Darkside opened with the scariest theme music of any “scary” TV show. Give it a listen for yourselves up top, and try not to replay it in your head all day long…while looking over your shoulder.

Amazing Stories

Air Dates: September 29, 1985 - April 10, 1987

Network: NBC

Best Episode: "Mummy, Daddy" (October 27, 1985)

Television anthologies don't get much more credible than Amazing Stories. Created by Steven Spielberg, the two-season NBC series featured episodes directed by, in no order of particular importance, Martin Scorsese, Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, Robert Zemeckis, and Spielberg himself. Being that Spielberg's intention was to work horror into the program's fantasy and science fiction, he also recruited proven horror directors like Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Joe Dante (Gremlins), and Bob Clark (Black Christmas).

For horror and sci-fi die-hards, there's nothing better than having a prestigious filmmaker dabble in their beloved off-the-beaten-path genres; Amazing Stories is arguably the pinnacle of that. Scorsese's contribution in particular, “Mirror, Mirror”, wholeheartedly dives into terror, focusing on a horror novelist who's stalked by a disfigured specter. And then there's the, for lack of a better word, amazing “Mummy, Daddy”, director William Dear's (Harry And The Hendersons…seriously) touching romp about an actor playing a mummy who gets mistaken for an actual wrapped-up Egyptian zombie.

The Ray Bradbury Theater

Air Dates: 1985 - 1992

Network: HBO, USA

Best Episode: "Playground" (June 4, 1985)

Even Stephen King would admit this fact of genre literature: Ray Bradbury was the original Stephen King. The comparison is multilayered. As far as productivity, both authors are known for writing more novels and short stories than any random pairings of four or more scribes combined; content wise, the tales of King and Bradbury are equally diverse, covering pee-your-pants horror as tightly as sentimental tearjerkers. One thing that sets the older Bradbury apart, though, is his greatness in the science fiction world, an area that King hasn't touched much.

Another pro-Bradbury advantage: He had his own anthology television series, one solely dedicated to adapting his stories and hosted by the man himself. And, like his writing, The Ray Bradbury Theater alternated between totally scary and oddly sweet.

The episodes that fall into the former category crash into it with the impact of Godzilla's foot. The scariest moments came in the show's first season: the William Shatner-led “The Playground” plays with the lasting effects of childhood bullying until its demonically bleak ending; “The Crowd” turns accident-watchers into malevolent phantoms; and “Banshee” flips an old Victorian ghost story and churns out a subdued chiller.

Are You Afraid Of The Dark?

Air Dates: April 15, 1992 - April 20, 1996

Network: Nickelodeon

Best Episode: "The Tale Of Old Man Corcoran" (1992)

Yes, a Nickelodeon show ranks within the top 10 of a “scariest TV shows of all time” list—got a problem with that? If so, take it up with “The Tale Of The Midnight Madness” star Nosferatu, or with Old Man Corcoran, the spooky caretaker who minds the haunted cemetery in “The Tale Of Old Man Corcoran”. We'd love to see you to challenge their scariness in real life.

Props to Nickelodeon for not softening anything when the network backed Are You Afraid Of The Dark?, the anthology, teenage-horror series that buoyed the SNICK block of shows. Despite the target audience being little kids stuck at home on Saturday nights with babysitters, Are You Afraid Of The Dark? played its scares nice and straight, working extra hard to unsettle viewers and embracing downbeat, twisty endings. Because of that, many episodes are still quite effective today. Shall we page Nosferatu to prove our point?

Night Gallery

Air Dates: November 8, 1969 - May 27, 1973

Network: NBC

Best Episode: "The Caterpillar" (March 1, 1972)

After the massive success of his first genre-specific TV creation, The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling gave the anthology format another look with Night Gallery, more of an on-the-nose horror program than Zone. The results, while not nearly as superlative as his Zone output, were frequently excellent, and almost always creepy.

The show's concept was a unique one: Before each story began, Serling introduced the tale with an abstract yet fitting painting, an illustrated picture that captured the segment's essence. Not all of Night Gallery's entries were memorable, though, a problem that's easily attributed to the show's reliance upon multiple segments per episode, rather than one half-hour narrative at a time, a la The Twilight Zone.

But when Night Gallery worked, it brilliantly married cold-blooded horror with primetime TV. The best tales were, unsurprisingly, written by Serling himself, such as the demonic “Camera Obscura”, revolting “The Caterpillar”, and the H.P. Lovecraft adaptation “Pickman's Model".

The Outer Limits (1963-1965)

Air Dates: September 16, 1963 - January 16, 1965

Network: ABC

Best Episode: "Demon With A Glass Hand" (October 17, 1964)

There's a fine line drawn in the proverbial sand that separates genre heads, and placement on either side depends on how the following question is answered: What's better, The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits? It's an unfair question in ways, since both shows are undeniably exceptional and laid the groundwork for practically every science fiction and psychologically complex horror property released in their respective wake.

But, as you'll find out deeper into this countdown, we're pro Zone, though we're also able to fully appreciate the genius behind Outer Limits—that's us tip-toeing that previously mentioned line.

Visually, The Outer Limits, a wholly sci-fi-based series, has a grittier, more claustrophobic veneer than Rod Serling's Zone, which aids its individuality considerably. As do its lavish alien designs, top-quality effects that upgraded nearly all of the show's intergalactic monsters into truly frightening scene-stealers. The best thing about The Outer Limits, however, was its writing, which treated potentially hokey subject matter with delicacy and profound maturity.

The X-Files

Air Dates: September 10, 1993 - May 19, 2002

Network: FOX

Best Episode: "Pusher" (February 23, 1996)

The X-Files spoiled us all. It's difficult to find quality genre programs on TV, let alone ones that can actually scare us, yet creator Chris Carter and his crack team of writers (which included Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan) blessed horror and sci-fi lovers such as ourselves with nine seasons' worth of top-notch storytelling and remarkably imaginative monsters and somewhat human villains. Nine years after its last episode, we're still waiting on a worthy predecessor; Fringe is close, but not quite there.

The “monsters of the week” that made The X-Files such a disturbing viewing experience week in and week out would've been pointlessly included if it weren't for the show's now-iconic main characters, agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Both complex and endlessly fascinating in their own unique ways, Mulder and Scully's two-sided presence guaranteed that, even if any given episode's fantastical elements were lacking, the character-driven portions would keep The X-Files on an even keel.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Air Dates: October 2, 1955 - May 10, 1965

Network: CBS, NBC

Best Episode: "The Case Of Mr. Pelham" (December 4, 1955)

The Twilight Zone has its legendary music. Tales From The Crypt has the one-of-a-kind Crypt Keeper. Alfred Hitchcock Presents, meanwhile, has its iconic title sequence: As the teasingly sinister theme song plays, the silhouette of the seminal filmmaker's chubby face is seen on a light wall, and then Hitch himself steps right into the frame and fills out the sketched impression. And then, two simple words: “Good evening.”

In almost any other case, those words would be considered a warm, friendly greeting, but not when it comes to Alfred Hitchcock Presents. An anthology series centered on mystery and suspense, Hitchcock's stab at the television format came on the heels of the British filmmaker's Hollywood infiltration, with classic films like Strangers On A Train (1951), Dial M For Murder (1954), and Rear Window (1954).

For his TV project, Hitch stuck to the same ingredients used in his best cinematic thrillers: paranoia, deceit, and homicide. An “evening” filled with episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents is certainly “good” for the viewer, not so much for the doomed characters on screen.

Hammer House Of Horror

Air Dates: September 13, 1980 - December 6, 1980

Network: ITV

Best Episode: "The House That Bled To Death" (October 11, 1980)

Are you a fan of happy endings? No, in stories, perverts. If you are, then Hammer House Of Horror isn't for you. For the rest of us who love a good downer of a coda, this British horror series, which only ran for 13 episodes back in 1980, is refreshingly cynical, capturing the old everyone-is-doomed spirit of EC Comics but with zero humor.

Clocking in at 50 minutes each, Hammer's episodes are essentially shortened horror films. The best of the lot is “The House That Bled To Death”, a twisty haunted house yarn in which a little girl's in-house birthday party abruptly ends when blood pours down from busted pipes. Also highly recommended: “The Two Faces Of Evil”, a brain-fuck of a visual experience about a guy who sees his doppelganger on the side of a country road, as well as “The Thirteenth Reunion”, in which a reporter stumbles across a weight loss clinic used for ritualistic murder.

Tales From The Crypt

Air Dates: June 10, 1989 - July 19, 1996

Network: HBO

Best Episode: "Television Terror" (July 17, 1990)

If this were a countdown of the “best TV hosts of all time,” Tales From The Crypt would rank much higher. All praise is due to The Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir), the morbidly sarcastic ghoul who opened and closed every episode of HBO's hard-R-rated anthology series. With his maniacally giddy laugh and penchant for grotesque puns (“I hope you like cannibal soup…. It's mmm-mmm good!”), The Crypt Keeper reminded audiences that Tales From The Crypt, while never less than gruesome, kept its proverbial tongue firmly planted in its cheek.

For that combination of horror and pitch-black comedy, the show's producers didn't have to look any further than the old EC Comics from the 1950s, titles like The Haunt Of Fear, The Vault Of Horror, and, yes, Tales From The Crypt. The series lifted the bulk of its stories directly from those pages, retaining EC's classic formula of “asshole does asshole-y things and then suffers the bloody comeuppance,” and the results were gleefully sick.

Twin Peaks

Air Dates: April 8, 1990 - June 10, 1991

Network: ABC

Best Episode: "Pilot" (April 8, 1990)

It's not exactly “going out on a limb” to declare that TV will never air another show quite like Twin Peaks. Much like cinemas won't screen films comparable to Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive any time soon. The common denominator here, of course, is David Lynch, the unclassifiable filmmaker whose wonderfully odd sensibilities own stock in horror, drama, romance, comedy, and brain-scrambling WTF-ness.

All of those elements, and plenty more, were the highpoints of Twin Peaks, the anything but routine procedural, co-created by Lynch and Mark Frost, that left viewers scratching their temples through its two-season existence. When they weren't scratching, though, viewers were applauding the show's uncanny knack for producing shivers and awkward laughs in equal measure.

The plot of Twin Peaks, or whatever semblance of coherent narrative there was, traced the investigations of one Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan), a beguiling lead character obsessed with nabbing the person who killed homecoming queen Laura Palmer; unlike AMC's The Killing, though, the whodunit side of Twin Peaks played second fiddle to the show's beautifully random scenes. Our personal favorite remains Cooper's infamous dream sequence, which we strongly advise you watch above.

Thriller

Air Dates: September 13, 1960 - April 30, 1962

Network: NBC

Best Episode: "Pigeons From Hell" (June 6, 1961)

On the air at the same time as Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, Thriller was never able to achieve the same degree of public recognition, nor has it garnered a similar amount of small-screen legend in the decades since. Perhaps that's because, unlike The Twilight Zone, the Boris Karloff-hosted Thriller didn't have as much to say about society—it was more concerned with scaring the pants off of viewers. Mission accomplished.

Straightforward in its intentions, the anthology-formatted Thriller focused on the macabre, with malevolent ghosts (the awesomely titled “Pigeons From Hell”), inexplicably murderous eyeglasses (“The Cheaters”), witches channeled through hairpieces (“A Wig For Miss Devore”), and serial killers (“Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper”). And for that, Thriller is hands down the best strictly-horror TV series of all time.

The Twilight Zone (1959-1964)

Air Dates: October 2, 1959 - June 19, 1964

Network: CBS

Best Episode: "The Masks" (March 20, 1964)

How many times have you heard someone, when in a bizarre situation (for instance, a bar in which women buy all of the drinks), say, “It feels like I'm in the The Twilight Zone”? There's one man to thank for that ongoing pop culture reference point: Rod Serling, the game-changer responsible for several award-winning TV scripts, but most notably known for creating the groundbreaking anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Given a look today, the Zone's greatest episodes still hold up as television's best examples of thought-provoking and unsettling storytelling. Serling and his writing team (led by Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont), probed societal issues and everyman fears with a genre-specific eye, inserting aliens, time travel, horror, and sometimes dark comedy into the everyday world as mirrors for viewers to confront harsh realities. The show was incredibly ahead of its time.

And it was, more often than not, scary as hell. Try driving on an open road alone at night after watching “The Hitchhiker”, or not shivering in the presence of mannequins once you've seen “After Hours". We still get paranoid while flying on airplanes (“Nightmare At 20,000 Feet”), reading cookbooks (“To Serve Man”), and quarreling with neighbors (“The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street”).

Television producers have tried time and time again to match what Serling did back in the early '60s, but to no avail. What's most scary about The Twilight Zone is how brilliant it remains today.