The best horror series on Netflix

I want to wake up, so badly. Why can’t I wake up? – Olivia Crain, The Haunting of Hill House

Netflix: the winter streaming platform?

Full disclosure: I haven’t had a Netflix account for at least a year. Like many people, a combination of rising subscription prices and not enough good new content to watch means I rotate between platforms. However, I’ll be going back to it around Christmas to catch up on things like Stranger Things and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but I’ll also be paying a visit to some old favourites, because if there’s one shining light in Netflix’s library, it’s the horror series.

Roll on the festivities…

American Horror Story: Coven

I dip in and out of American Horror Story (quite frankly, it’s an intense thing to try and binge watch), but the third season reigns supreme for me. It’s witchcraft in New Orleans and while the story wobbles in some small parts, it’s a compelling, campy psychodrama with some real shock moments. Also, just look at the cast list: aside from standouts like Sarah Paulson, Taissa Farmiga, and Lily Rabe, there’s the likes of Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, and Patti LuPone. Oh, and even a guest role for the legendary Stevie Nicks (to whom I will dedicate a full post to one day).

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

To be very specific, Season 1 (to be even more specific, Season 1 Part One and the Yule Special). I dipped out after that, just because I could sense it getting really convoluted (and I know that the ending is very controversial). But those first eleven episodes were borderline perfection for me: a tight mystery in an evocative setting, the dread slowly building in the darkness. There’s seances, creepiness in mineshafts, pumpkin picking… What more could you want for a Halloween watch?

The Flanaverse (The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, The Fall of the House of Usher; honourable mention: Gerald’s Game)

All bow down to the master that is Mike Flanagan. Aside from The Midnight Club (which I struggled to finish – no real loss considering it was cancelled with loose ends), I have devoured anything he’s created for Netflix. While I love his original works (such as Oculus and Hush), it’s his literary adaptations that really shine. His casting is always incredible (many actors, like in American Horror Story, have several goes around the Flanaverse) and in my opinion, he really knows how to synthesise disparate inspirations to create something individual but still cohesive. These are genuine spinechillers but often with a real heart: see Nell’s ‘confetti’ speech in Hill House, Jamie leaving the door ajar for Dani in Bly Manor, and Leonore’s fate in Usher.

But my favourite by far is Midnight Mass, which is always a treat to watch in the runup to Easter and got me into a brief but intense Neil Diamond obsession. It doesn’t wear its Stephen King influences (especially Salem’s Lot) lightly, but it’s a beautiful, claustrophobic meditation on faith and grief set almost solely on a desolate island that’s seen better days. Oh, and I defy anyone to find me a character as hateable as Bev.

 

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities

How to know if an anthology series is good? It leaves you wanting more.

And I still want more, Guillermo.

‘Lot 36’ has a satisfyingly gruesome end, while I do not recommend watching the likes of ‘Graveyard Rats’ and ‘The Autopsy’ before bed. But the hidden gem might be the least horrific episode (or most, depending on your point of view): ‘The Murmuring’. Half ghost story, half relationship study, its ending is bittersweet and Essie Davis is just as compelling as she was in The Babadook.

Marianne

Last but absolutely not least is French series Marianne. Now, I don’t know what the English dubbing is like (I’ve always watched it in Italian), but oh, is it worth a watch. Our protagonist is screwed-up author Emma who kills off her main character, a witch called Marianne, only to discover that maybe she’s not as fictional as Emma has always believed. She returns to her hometown where very unnerving stuff starts to go down (can you see why I might like it?)

It's unsettling but ultimately satisfying – yes, it ends on a mild cliffhanger, but I prefer to see it as an ambiguous ending that’s not really that ambiguous (and I say that as someone who despises ambiguous endings).

Coldharbour: All about the atmosphere and dysfunctional families

I wouldn’t necessarily say any of these series have been influences on my writing, but they certainly scratch that itch I have for psychodrama in spooky settings.

So here’s a snippet from Coldharbour that encapsulates that same slightly mournful feeling of dread:

She didn’t even know why she tried the hallway lights, Bakelite sticking under her fingers, but then she thought that Uncle Harry might’ve bothered to get someone in.

It had been nine years, after all.

More or less.

There’d been that time, after that day, when Uncle Harry had been insistent that she should come home, but Alex just did what she always did: forced Shaz to take sides, which meant letting Alex and Matilda kip on her sofa for a month.

All because Alex wouldn’t return to the house.

No.

Not after that day.

But there she was, gripping her suitcase far too hard again, staring into the gloam of an old house that had no business existing, a century’s murk musting up the corners.

And she was meant to convince Sam to let Maddie move in with her?

Here?

Because Alex had lingered, loitered even, at the train station, where she had sat herself down on the least sticky bench and hung onto her suitcase with both of her chill-cracked hands as she stared at the opposite platform, the “Coldharbour” sign still emblazoned with some faded Fifties illustration of the beach, which, apparently, was all sand and stripy umbrellas and not the fag-ends and the straggly, slimy bits of seaweed that Alex had abandoned a month ago.

And when a bell had chimed five, it galvanised her into action, but with the kind strange automatic force of will that propelled her right past the house and all the way back there.

To the sea.

Not to the house.

To the sea and to blood and to Elizabeth.

Alex stuck her head into the living room, which looked the same as it ever did with too many childhood photos and the brown second-hand velveteen settee. It wasn’t exactly Through the Keyhole, was it?

Pre-order Coldharbour: A Gothic Tale of Love and Death (out 31st January 2026)