The season of falling leaves and blood-curdling screams is upon us. With the cooler temperatures come some of the best scary shows of the year. Everyone knows that Stranger Things is getting a fourth season, so playing catch up now is perfect. Then again, a good binge of Penny Dreadful might chill you to the core as well. With so much haunted Halloween programming on the air, it’s hard to decide what to watch next. For those of you who have finished every episode of The Walking Dead, and blown through all the slasher flicks you know, we have some additional suggestions. Here are our top five perfectly frightful programs to add to your Halloween must-watch list this year.
1. Hometown Horror (Travel Channel)
Does your town have a haunted history? You might be living in the middle of a horror story and not even know it… yet! Now Yorks’ ‘hometown production company Talos cooked up this creepy idea. Julian P. Hobbs and Elli Hakami, who created Talos Films, are also the executive producers on this Travel Chanel special. Hometown Horror focuses on some of the many unassuming places that are secretly the source of some horrible history. From ghosts and ghouls to serial killers and the Pigman of Angola in New York, this show will take you to places only the most fright-friendly families would want to live. Watchers beware, you may learn that your small town has a dark history you never knew about. Some places are just naturally more frightening than others, and Hometown Horror explores the best, or worst of them in this innovative new look at Terror.
2. Typewriter (Netflix)
Typewriter made big social media waves back in July, but if you haven’t binge-watched it yet, then you’re in for a real trick-or-treat with this show. Sujoy Ghosh directed this frightful tale about a small town in India. Follow a group of friends as they attempt to capture a ghost that lives in one of the houses in their town. It’s not easy being a kid in school while trying to trap an otherworldly apparition. Between homework, class time, families who expect you to do your chores, and the lovely family that moves into the haunted home, it’s no walk in the park for the Ghost Club to find both the means and the time to exorcise this haunted house. The bravery of the Ghost Club members, Sam, Nick, Bunty, and Gablue, remains undaunted by the distractions. They will get their ghost. They must! Will they prevail, or die trying? We won’t spoiler it for you. However, we will share this, the setting for Typewriter is the upscale and touristy Goa, on the west coast of India. The show is just one of the growing list of Indian films and shows Netflix has been cherrypicking lately, and it’s outstanding. We love seeing more international programming with exotic locales, yet a familiar story of young friends with an interest in the paranormal. If you want to find out what happens, and why this show was such a buzz from the moment it dropped, you’ll have to add it to your list and see for yourself.
3. Castle Rock (Hulu)
You can’t complete a must-watch list in October without at least considering Stephen King in the mix. We think Castle Rock is one of his best shows yet, and that’s saying something. The prolific and masterful Stephen King has written no less than sixty-one scare filled novels (including the Bachman books) and produced at least thirty-one movies. However, it’s noteworthy that Castle Rock happens to be his thirteenth show. Does that mean something special to the writer? We’re not sure, but we can tell you you don’t want to miss this psychological thriller. Castle Rock bounces back and forth between the current era and when the main characters were children, or at least much younger adults in some cases. Telling the tale of a dark and twisted town with more than a few skeletons in its closet isn’t easy. Each episode brings new revelations and more questions about what happened and what’s to come for the supposedly quiet community. We couldn’t begin to sum up all the frightening interactions and plot twists in a few sentences. From a potential murderer to a dementia ridden older woman who spills one too many of the town’s skeletons from its collective closet, every character is fully fleshed out and complex. There are so many spoilers we don’t want to ruin for you. We will say that Bill Skarsgard plays “The Kid,” a secret inmate at the local penitentiary, held prisoner for years. It’s his request that brings Henry, the lawyer everyone thinks killed his own adoptive father, back from his self imposed exile. Sadly when The Kid tries to explain about the dimension, he came from things go south, and he ends up getting locked away again. If you want to experience the whole terrifying mystery for yourself, all we can say is, begin at the beginning and leave the lights on.
4. Channel Zero (Amazon Prime)
Are you a fan of a good creepypasta? The horror stories that get passed around and even created on the internet make for some heart-stopping reading and watching for that matter. Channel Zero plays with some of these spine tinglers and brings them to a new and horrifying life on your TV screen. Though it’s no longer airing new episodes after Syfy canceled it earlier this year, Channel Zero is worth it. Tune in and see what you missed since you can catch all four seasons on Amazon, iTunes, and YouTube (among other services). The different-story-each-season format reminds us of American Horror Story or even the one-shot episodes of The Twilight Zone or Tales From the Crypt from our childhood.
5. Destination Fear (Travel Channel)
Destination Fear started as a Canadian TV series back in 2012. The name was co-opted, and the format has changed, but it airs in October, this time on the Travel Channel. The original show set up unsuspecting relatives and friends in a curated and staged paranormal fear-fest. The American version of Destination Fear is much scarier. The intrepid crew faces real paranormal hot spots in a cross country journey. They’ll spend the night in numerous locations known for their apparitions and otherworldly phenomenon. Chelsea, Tanner, and Zak will be testing their limits and exploring fear in this unusual series about the paranormal.
Final Thoughts
Skip the reruns this year and watch some new programming for the month of spooks and specters with any one of these delightfully macabre shows. After all, it’s just a little fear. It won’t kill you… we hope. Do you have a favorite new show that would be perfect for this lineup? Let us know in the comments below so we can watch along with you.
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