Key Takeaways
- Horror TV shows can be just as terrifying as horror films, featuring memorable scares and unsettling narratives.
- Episodes like “Hush” from Buffy and “The Bent-Neck Lady” from The Haunting of Hill House showcase unique storytelling techniques that enhance the horror experience.
- Shows like Chernobyl blend real-life horror with fiction, creating a chilling atmosphere that resonates deeply with viewers.
- Standalone episodes often deliver intense horror experiences, making them unforgettable parts of their respective series.
When we talk about the scariest pieces of media we’ve ever seen, we’re usually talking about horror movies — Jaws, The Shining, The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street — but the scariest episodes of shows like The Twilight Zone, The Walking Dead, and The X-Files are as terrifying as any horror movie. From Buffy to Black Mirror, there’s a ton of great horror on television.
Some of the most terrifying images I’ve ever seen, and some of the most heart-stopping jump scares I’ve ever experienced, have been in horror TV shows — particularly in self-contained episodes that play like their own little standalone horror movie, like the Sunset Cocktails party from Widow’s Bay. Some of the scariest TV episodes aren’t even from horror shows, like the cleanup episode of Chernobyl, where the workers are moving highly radioactive debris by hand.
10
Hush
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 4, Episode 10
The first season of Buffy was a bit too campy to really frighten its audience. The writers were more interested in doing their own little tongue-in-cheek riffs on their favorite horror movies than using that horror to put their characters through the emotional wringer.
But by the fourth season, Buffy was one of the best shows on television, perfectly balancing the horror with the drama. The season 4 episode “Hush,” in which the people of Sunnydale mysteriously lose the power of speech, is deeply disturbing because it plays with the most powerful tool in a sound designer’s toolkit: silence.
9
Beach Reads
Widow’s Bay Season 1, Episode 4
When a TV show shifts away from its established main character to shine a light on a supporting player, it can either turn out disastrous (see: Ted Lasso) or incredible (see: The Last of Us). In its fourth episode, “Beach Reads,” Apple’s brilliant horror comedy Widow’s Bay delivered the latter.
Shifting the focus to Kate O’Flynn’s Patricia as she hosts the Sunset Cocktails party, “Beach Reads” is an emotional rollercoaster as we see her fail miserably, turn it around, and start to win everyone over. And that’s before the shocking twist ending deflates all the joy and reveals what’s really going on.
8
The Bent-Neck Lady
The Haunting Of Hill House Episode 5
The saddest episode of The Haunting of Hill House is also the scariest, and the most lovable character in the show is also the most tragic. Everyone else is deeply flawed and dysfunctional, but Nell was a sweet kid who just wanted her family to get along.
“The Bent-Neck Lady” goes back and reveals the source of Nell’s trauma: she’s been haunted by her own ghost all her life. The noose-wrapped spirit was terrifying enough on her own, but finding out who she was and how she got there made it all the more unsettling.
7
Teddy Perkins
Atlanta Season 2, Episode 6
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After Jordan Peele’s Get Out revitalized the social thriller genre, Donald Glover did his own riff on it in his surrealist TV series Atlanta. Atlanta is technically a half-hour comedy, but it often felt just as much like a hard-hitting drama, and it bordered on full-blown horror in a couple of episodes, and season 2’s “Teddy Perkins” is the show’s creepiest installment by far.
Atlanta had a lot of memorable episodes, but none of them made an impression quite like “Teddy Perkins.” Glover’s portrayal of the title character is as mesmerizing as it is horrifying, and it makes for a self-contained horror masterpiece.
6 Lonely Souls
Twin Peaks Season 2 Episode 7
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Just about any given Twin Peaks episode could be included on this list. The show introduced its most haunting setting — the Black Lodge — in just its third episode. But arguably the most frightful installment in the series is the season 2 episode “Lonely Souls,” where we first learned that Leland Palmer had been inhabited by the nefarious Killer BOB.
The death of Laura Palmer’s cousin, Maddy Ferguson, might be the single most unsettling sequence in the entire Twin Peaks saga. It still chills my spine to this day (and my spine ain’t what it used to be).
5 The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be
The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 1
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The Walking Dead ‘s season 7 premiere was so relentlessly intense and excessively gory that it made a lot of fans quit the show and never come back. Following on from the season 6 finale’s cliffhanger, season 7 opened with a full hour of Negan torturing our beloved heroes for his own amusement.
This episode showcases pure torture porn, switching between acts of physical torture (like beating Glenn’s eyeball out) and psychological torture (like forcing Rick to wrap his head around chopping off his son’s hand). “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” might not be very tasteful, but you can’t deny that it’s deeply affecting. It’s The Walking Dead ‘s answer to Hostel or The Human Centipede.
4 Home
The X-Files Season 4 Episode 2
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The X-Files had fun with familiar tropes and conventions. In any given monster-of-the-week episode they could throw Mulder and Scully into a stealth remake or werewolf-infested episode. In season four’s “Home,” they toyed with old tropes involving an inbred hillbilly murder family seen in other films. This was also their first episode to receive viewer discretion warning.
Black Mirror Season 4 Episode 5
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The scariest thing about Black Mirror episodes are usually techno-dystopian social implications. In “Metalhead,” however, it’s about a robot dog hunting down Maxine Peake. This pared-back episode boils down A.I. debates into one simple question: why would we create something capable of killing us?
2 Living Doll
The Twilight Zone Season 5 Episode 6
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The Twilight Zone is responsible for some freakiest visuals and haunting plot twists. One episode features an alien race arriving with recipes involving human meat while another depicts climate crisis melting humanity off Earth. However, “Living Doll,” remains spookiest example — precursor to every creepy-doll movie from Annabelle to M3GAN.
1 Open Wide O Earth
Chernobyl Episode Three
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Chernobyl isn’t technically a horror show but it’s scariest series ever seen. No zombies or vampires terrified me as much as Chernobyl did. Each episode has unsettling moments from birds falling out sky warning signs to soldiers executing irradiated dogs. However third episode “Open Wide O Earth,” depicts struggles cleaning radioactive debris while showcasing radiation poisoning’s body horror vividly through Jessie Buckley’s husband (and Jessie herself after ignoring nurses’ advice).
