7 Netflix Horror Shows Where Every Episode Is a Masterpiece

Image via Netflix Published Sep 15, 2026, 8:11 PM EDT Michael Block is a 14 time GLAM Award nominated writer, producer, and host of the podcast Block Talk. Throughout his time in the entertainment industry, he has worked on and off Broadway as a stage manager, written several produced plays, critiqued hundreds of theatrical performances, drag and cabaret shows, and has produced events randing from drag competitoons to variety concerts! On Block Talk, he interviews nightlife personalities, covers the wide world of entertainment through features, ranking episodes, and recaps ALL of Drag Race, as well as Dragula and Survivor. He has interviewed hundreds of RuGirls that span the globe at DragCon NYC, DragCon LA, and DragCon UK. In his free time, he makes one-of-a-kind jewelry and gift baskets with his mom. He is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. Sign in to your Collider account With spooky season right around the corner, many of us are already getting in the mood as the weather begins to chill and hot tea begins to brew. With a cozy blanket on the couch, it's never too early to prepare for the season with a scary movie or a terrifying series. Fortunately, Netflix has played host to many extraordinary horror shows that fit the bill. From non-stop Mike Flanagan masterpieces to foreign thrillers that scare in any language, Netflix has had the pulse on the genre. We are here to celebrate horror shows where every episode is a genuine masterpiece. With a great mix of long-running shows and iconic miniseries, these shows may require some lights on while watching. 'All of Us Are Dead' (2022–Present) Image via Netflix Never ever sleep on a foreign language series. Especially when they come out of South Korea. One of the very best is All of Us Are Dead. The series depicts a high school that becomes ground zero for a catastrophic zombie virus outbreak after science teacher Lee Byeong-chan's (Kim Byung-chul) experiment goes wrong as he creates a mutant pathogen called the "Jonas virus" to help his bullied son, Lee Jin-su (Lee Min-goo) fight back. Cut off from outside help and resources, a group of high school students get locked inside the building where they must use their wits, everyday school supplies, and teamwork to stay alive while the infection spills out into the surrounding city. All of Us Are Dead uses an accessible horror premise to explore severe school bullying, academic pressure, and class divides through the ethical dilemmas under extreme pressure. All of Us Are Dead is a masterful ticking-clock horror thriller. It's a fast-paced survival show that is enriched through its emotional resonance and biting social commentary. Unlike some zombie stories, these undead are kinetic, fast-moving zombies, heightening the need for quick thinking. As the students rely on everyday objects to fight off hordes, their everyday survival skills are tested as they battle past grievances. By using the apocalypse to explore systemic failures, bullying, and how older generations let down the youth, their everyday survival series highlights acts of selflessness and human goodness despite the chaos. Each episode is a high-stakes adventure that is profoundly character-driven. With unpredictable fates and heartbreaking sacrifices, All of Us Are Dead will keep you glued to your screen. Good news, the series will come back for Season 2. When? Keep your alerts on! 'Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities' (2022) Image via Netflix Anthology series have been all the rage as they offer a dash of this and a drop of that under a common umbrella. In Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, his brilliant brain curates a unique vision of horror. Through eight standalone stories, Guillermo del Toro invites visionary horror directors the key to the kingdom to bring their distinct style and creative freedom to the small screen. Mirroring series like The Twilight Zone, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities explore a plethora of fears that range from Gothic and macbre to cosmic dread and classic creature features. Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities is a good-looking show. The director-driven dramas showcase top-tier practical effects via varied subgenres and auteur visions. Having del Toro provide his best Rod Sterling and Alfred Hitchcock vibes as he introduces each episode. Then, having a roster of directors including Jennifer Kent and Panos Cosmatos gives each segment its own identity. Perhaps the best of the eight might be David Prior's "The Autospy," starring F. Murray Abraham, thanks to the brilliant twists and strong tension. The brilliance of the series is you can pop in and watch a single story, or binge it all for a frightful night under the covers. 'Marianne' (2019) Image via Netflix Easily the greatest hidden gem of the horror realm on Netflix is the French-language series Marianne. Created and directed by Samuel Bodin, the horror series follows Emma Larsimon (Victoire Du Bois), a famous novelist who discovers that the evil witch Marianne she writes about in her novels has crossed over into the real world and is plaguing her life. Marianne takes possession of Emma's friends and family to torment her in the childhood coastal town of Elden, where she must face her demons and stop the melee. Marianne utilizes a terrifying supernatural horror premise where it's writer versus creation. Let's face it—Marianne is a well-made, innovatively created supernatural thriller. Bodin uses tight pacing to build tension and explore a world where anyone could be the target of the witch's wrath. Through dark shadows and dim light, viewers are made to feel uneasy before they are thrust into witnessing a jump scare. And yet, the ease in which he builds quiet dread keeps the tension alive. Through mixing personal guilt, grief and childhood trauma with dark folklore, the story becomes intimate. The series is an episodic masterpiece thanks to its relentless combination of high-art cinematography, deeply unsettling physical performances, and endless shocks. Before she takes over others, Mireille Herbstmeyer's performance as Madame Daugeron, the witch’s initial human host, delivers a terrifyingly perfect fright. The wide eyes, contorted grins, and vocal stims carry the first part of the story. At only eight episodes, like a good book, you won't stop flipping through the episodic chapters. 'Midnight Mass' (2021) The Netflix and Mike Flanagan collaboration reshaped the horror genre on television forever. Of his many series during his time with the streamer, they were all brilliant, but very few were perfect masterpieces. One was Midnight Mass. His Fall 2021 entry follows the return of Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) to Crockett Island after serving prison time for a fatal drunk-driving accident. His arrival coincides with the arrival of an eccentric new cleric, Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater), to replace the aging Monsignor. Suddenly, miracles around the town, reviving a massive spiritual awakening. Unfortunately, miracles are not exactly what they seem to be. Midnight Mass explores a multitude of themes, including guilt and personal trauma, which run parallel with the dangers of religious fanaticism. Midnight Mass is a fascinating horror thriller as the series explores the dark side of blind faith and zealotry and how it can be easily manipulated against those who are desperately searching for a miracle. The series uses supernatural tropes to represent personal trauma. By centering the story around deeply flawed individuals with real-world woes, Midnight Mass becomes an accessible horror story. Flanagan builds immense anxiety through rising tension through the eerie occurrences and guiding his ensemble to great places. Linklater brings a breakout performance, but it's Samantha Sloyan who steals the screen as the haunting Bev Keane. It's a masterclass in horror acting. The moral of Midnight Mass is that good intentions can twist into corruption. Be careful who you follow! Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you're not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one. 🏕️Jason 🔪Michael 💤Freddy 🎈Pennywise 🪆Chucky TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → 01 Something feels wrong. You can't explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty. ALeave immediately. I don't need to understand a threat to respect it. BStay quiet and observe. If I can see it, I can understand it. If I can understand it, I can avoid it. CStay awake. Whatever this is, I am not going to sleep until I feel safe again. DConfront it directly. Fear grows in the dark — I'd rather know what I'm dealing with. ECheck everything, trust nothing. The threat might be closer than I think — and smaller. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply. ASomewhere remote — a cabin, a campsite, off the grid and away from people. BA quiet suburban neighbourhood where nothing ever happens. Except tonight. CIn my own head — the most dangerous place of all, depending on what's already in there. DWherever children are — because something about this place attracts the worst things. ESomewhere ordinary — a house, a toy store, a place where the last thing you'd expect is a threat. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn't account for. What's yours? APhysical fitness — I can run, I can swim, I can outlast something that relies on brute persistence. BSpatial awareness — I always know the exits, the hiding spots, the fastest route out. CPsychological resilience — I've faced my worst fears before. They don't have the same power over me. DEmotional steadiness — I don't panic. Panic is what gets you caught. EScepticism — I don't underestimate threats because of how they look. Size is irrelevant. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it. AThe unstoppable — something that will not stop, cannot be reasoned with, and is always getting closer. BThe invisible — a threat I can feel but can't locate, watching from somewhere I can't see. CThe psychological — something that uses my own mind and memories against me. DThe unknowable — something ancient, shapeless, that feeds on the fear itself. EThe mundane — a threat so ordinary-looking that no one will believe me until it's too late. NEXT QUESTION → 05 You're with a group when things start going wrong. What's your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn't. AThe one who says "we need to leave" first — and means it, even when no one listens. BThe one who stays quiet, watches the others, and figures out the pattern before anyone else does. CThe one who holds the group together when panic sets in — because someone has to. DThe one who asks the questions nobody wants to ask — because ignoring them gets people killed. EThe one who takes the threat seriously when everyone else is laughing it off. NEXT QUESTION → 06 What's the horror movie mistake you're most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not. AGoing back for someone — I know I shouldn't, but I can't leave them behind. BAssuming I'm safe once I've found a hiding spot. That's when it finds me. CFalling asleep when I absolutely cannot afford to. Exhaustion is its own enemy. DLetting my curiosity override my instincts — I always need to understand what I'm dealing with. EDismissing the threat because of how it looks. That's exactly what it wants. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What's your best weapon against something that can't be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it. AThe environment itself — I use the terrain, the water, the geography against it. BPatience — I wait, I watch, and I strike at the one moment it doesn't expect. CLucidity — if I can stay in control of my own mind, it loses its primary weapon. DCourage — facing it directly, refusing to run, taking away the fear it feeds on. EImprovisation — I use whatever's at hand, however unconventional. Creativity over brute force. NEXT QUESTION → 08 It's the final scene. You're the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What's yours? AI kept moving. I never stopped, never hid for too long, never let it corner me. BI figured out the pattern before anyone else did — and I used it against the thing following it. CI stayed awake, stayed lucid, and refused to give it the one thing it needed most. DI stopped being afraid of it. And the moment I did, everything changed. EI took it seriously from the start — and I never once made the mistake of underestimating it. REVEAL MY VILLAIN → Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck. Jason VoorheesJason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit. He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn't strategise, doesn't adapt, doesn't outsmart. He simply pursues. Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge. The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance. You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected. Michael MyersMichael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it's too late for anyone who isn't paying close enough attention. But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound. Michael's power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is. Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had. You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it. Freddy KruegerFreddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised. You are harder to destabilise than most. You've faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven't looked away. The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it. Freddy's greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on. Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here. PennywisePennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it. The Losers Club didn't survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly. You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away. That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise's worst nightmare. It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all. ChuckyChucky's greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it's already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is. You don't have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance. Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone. Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing. Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 'Santa Clarita Diet' (2017–2019) Image via Netflix And now, for something funny. Created by Victor Fresco, zombies became funny thanks to Santa Clarita Diet. The dark comedy follows suburban real estate couple Sheila and Joel Hammond (Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant) whose lives are turned upside down when Sheila mysteriously changes following an illness, turning her into an undead. As she develops an intense appetite for human flesh, her family, including their teenage daughter Abby (Liv Hewson), must find her people to munch on as they seek a cure. A series whose life was cut too short, Santa Clarita Diet delivers the funny through casual cannibalism and gore. The premise is wild, yet anchored brilliantly by the powerhouse couple. Barrymore and Olyphant trade drama for humor. Their comedic timing was some of the best on television at the time. Murder becomes like a mundane chore. It leads to some bizarre and funny situations. With the sun-drenched California setting serving as the backdrop where blood and guts defy the cheerful locale. Santa Clarita Diet is wonderfully over-the-top and sharp. Quick 30-minute episodes make Santa Clarita Diet easy to consume, and each episode is absurdly delicious (pun intended). 'The Fall of the House of Usher' (2023) Image via Netflix Using the works of Edgar Allan Poe as the root of a horror story is a brilliant idea. Fortunately, it ended up being another Mike Flanagan masterpiece. The Fall of the House of Usher is framed through the terror surrounding the tragedy of the mysterious deaths of the adult children of wealthy pharmaceutical CEO Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood and Zach Gilford). Through flashbacks that reveal how Roderick and his twin sister, Madeline (Mary McDonnell and Willa Fitzgerald), ruthlessly built their empire, each episode tracks the demise of each heir, all tied back to a classic Poe story or poem. The Fall of the House of Usher is a sensationally dark story that brings the allure of a modern, suspenseful corruption story through the guise of a supernatural thriller. The modern setting makes the dark demise even juicier as the victims are morally dark or grey. By taking direct aim at corporate greed and the real-world opiod epidemic, The Fall of the House of Usher grounds the narrative in everyday trauma. With each episode centering on a different family member, it gives you a clue of who might go down next. Yet, how the death happens is anyone's guess. Unless you know the source material, that is. Every episode is jam-packed with striking visuals, brilliant dialogue, and never-ending dread that leaves you hooked. The Fall of the House of Usher is Flanagan's most daring Netflix series that gets better with multiple watches. 'The Haunting of Hill House' (2018) Image via Netflix Arguably, the best work during Mike Flanagan's Netflix era is The Haunting of Hill House. If it wasn't pitch-perfect, it's likely the subsequent series may not have slapped just the same. The Haunting of Hill House essentially reinvigorated the horror miniseries and serialized storytelling. Based on Shirley Jackson's novel, The Haunting of Hill House centers on the Crain family through two timelines. The story jumps between the past, when Hugh and Olivia Crain (Henry Thomas and Carla Gugino) move their five children into a creepy fixer-upper mansion, and the present, in which the kids are now adults, haunted by a family tragedy. A story about family trauma where the monsters are the ghosts of real-life issues, The Haunting of Hill House blends genuine terror with a story about grief. Flanagan masters the horror storytelling while ensuring there is more to the simple jump scares and atmospheric tension. The terrors in the house become metaphors for guilt, regret, mental illness, and addiction. Each of the Crain siblings handle their childhood trauma differently, making their connections tightly tied or pulled completely apart. Even further, the five Crains represent the five stages of grief: Steven (Michiel Huisman) is denial, Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser) is anger, Theo (Kate Siegel) is bargaining, Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is depression, and Nell (Victoria Pedretti) is acceptance. Through the brilliance of the timelines, Flanagan is able to track the journey from the terrifying summer to how it broke them in their adult lives. The series also happens to be expertly crafted with sensational visuals and daring directorial choices, including the brilliant one-shots. If there is ever a show that you might wish to experience for the first time again, it's this one.