Best Horror TV Shows on Amazon Prime

Old classics and international hits make up the some of the scariest TV shows available to stream on Amazon Prime.

Best Horror TV Shows Amazon Prime
Photo: Art Pictures Vision | Felt Films | BBC | Amazon

If you’re reading this on Halloween, Happy Halloween! If you’re not reading this on Halloween, Happy Halloween anyway! With streaming services like Amazon Prime, there’s no excuse for not making every day Halloween. 

You already know about some of the scariest horror movies on Amazon Prime, but don’t forget that there are plenty of terrifying and bingeworthy horror shows on Amazon Prime as well. Many of them are classics like The Veil and One Step Beyond, even more, however, are modern, disturbing fairy tales like Lore and Truth Seekers Without further ado, here are some of the scariest shows to stream on Amazon Prime.

Editor’s Note: This post is updated monthly. Bookmark this page and come back every month to stay up to date with the best horror TV shows on Amazon Prime.

Best Horror TV Shows Dark/Web

Dark/Web

For those interested in anthology and serialized horror storytelling, Dark/Web offers the best of both worlds. This Amazon Prime original tells a single spooky tale, spread out over eight largely self-contained “chapters.”

Ad – content continues below

Dark/Web picks up with the disappearance of cyber analyst Molly Solis (Noemi Gonzalez). As her friends investigate what happened to Molly, they begin to uncover some truly dark secrets hidden within the fabric of the Internet. Dark/Web expertly exploits real world fears about the spreading influence of this omniscient communication technology.

Watch Dark/Web on Amazon

Best Horror TV Shows Lore

Lore

Aaron Mahnke’s history horror podcast Lore has always operated under the theory that truth is stranger (and scarier) than fiction. That’s the same philosophy that this Amazon Prime original adaptation adopts.

Both seasons of Lore tell a handful of real life stories that illustrate the origins of some of our world’s spookiest legends and events. Narration combined with live action recreations present tales of vampirism, grave-robbing, werewolves, and more.

Watch Lore on Amazon

Best TV Horror Shows on Amazon - Truth Seekers

Truth Seekers

(Arrives Oct. 30)

Ad – content continues below

Many years ago, a certain spooky show promised that the truth is out there. And now here comes another that is still looking for it.Truth Seekers is an Amazon original from the prolific comedy-horror duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Frost stars as Gus, a lonely guy who works a boring job installing broadband. By night, however, Gus uses his a personal tragedy as inspiration to investigate all manner of the paranormal. Ghost hunting is an increasingly popular pastime and it’s past time that it got some more representation on scripted television.

Watch Truth Seekers on Amazon

Best Horror TV Shows The Veil

The Veil

1958’s The Veil consists of dramatizations of strange tales, the majority of which also feature host Boris Karloff in the cast. At story’s end, our host is back to offer a conclusion to that particular story of “the world beyond our understanding.”

Not that 1950s TV audiences would have known about it, because The Veil wasn’t broadcast. Footage from its episodes appeared in some late sixties TV movies, and a DVD release followed in the 1990s, but its cancellation prior to airing have made it a cult find.

Watch The Veil on Amazon

Ad – content continues below

Best Horror TV Shows Haunted State

Haunted State

There are so many claims of ghosts, paranormal activity, and other things that go bump in the night worldwide that sometimes it seems best just to focus on one geographic area. That’s the goal of documentary series, Haunted State. Haunted State narrows its paranormal coverage down to just one U.S. state.

That state in question? Wisconsin. Despite not achieving statehood until 1848, Wisconsin apparently has some of the most ghost activity of state in the union. And it’s up to four documentarians to investigate these spooky claims.

Watch Haunted State on Amazon

Best Horror TV Shows One Step Beyond

One Step Beyond

The amazing drama you are about to see is a matter of human record,” runs John Newland’s introduction to this Twilight Zone-esque series. “The real people who lived this story, they believe it, they know, they took that one step beyond.

Famously, Newland took one step beyond himself when making “The Sacred Mushroom” episode in which he ingested hallucinogenic mushrooms and filmed his reaction. It’s not available here, but it’s out there in both senses of the phrase.

Watch One Step Beyond on Amazon

Ad – content continues below

Best Horror TV Shows on Amazon - The Day After

The Day After

The phrase “The Day After” has a long track record in the disaster horror realm. That was the name of an 1983 ABC TV movie that forever traumatized a generation with the terrifying realities of nuclear war. It also just happens to be a pretty terrifying Russian TV series as well.

The Day After (or Vyzhit posle in the original Russian) is another apocalyptic tale. It tells the story of a drug company trying to create super humans but instead releasing a deadly virus. The series picks up with 11 stranger waking up in a bunker with no memory of how they got there, and who must soon shoulder the fate of mankind.

Watch The Day After on Amazon

Best Horror TV Shows on Amazon - The Witching Season

The Witching Season

Oh you wanted more horror anthologies? Well The Witching Season is more than happy to oblige. The Witching Season was a fun little project from a group of upstart filmmakers to demonstrate the power of good horror storytelling.

The anthology’s first five episodes premiered on YouTube and now they have a longtime streaming home on Amazon Prime. The fourth episode, They Live Inside Us, was even adapted into a feature film which premiered in October of 2020.

Watch The Witching Season on Amazon

Ad – content continues below

Best Horror TV Shows on Amazon - Hellier

Hellier

The United States isn’t hurting for haunted locations. The country has the spooky dark magic of New Orleans, the lost ghosts of Gettysburg, and the tortured history of Salem. Then there’s … Hellier, Kentucky?

Docuseries Hellier dives deep into the creepy legacy of one of America’s least appreciated paranormal hotspots. The whole thing starts when a filmmaking team receives reports of hobgoblins on the loose in Hellier, Kentucky. But when the Canadian film crew arrives in the small, dying coal town, they soon discover that hobgoblins are the least of Hellier’s supernatural concerns.

Watch Hellier on Amazon

Best Horror TV Shows Living and the Dead

The Living and the Dead

The BBC’s The Living and the Dead is an aesthetically beautiful show. It’s not entirely dissimilar to a British-ized The Returned. It stars Colin Moran as Nathan Appleby, a psychology who inherits a beautiful, if creepy manor.

Sure, the property is a touch isolated but that doesn’t concern Nathan and his wife. It should because what comes next is a bit more Amityville Horror than The Returned.

Watch The Living and the Dead on Amazon

Ad – content continues below

Best Horror TV Shows Apparitions

Apparitions

When The Exorcist first premiered in 1973, it changed everything for horror. A whole world of demonology and exorcism entered into our collective unconscious to torment the masses. Still, the TV world hasn’t done much with exorcism-based horror since that then. BBC’s Apparitions from 2008, however, might be the exception. This is a nifty little horror drama that goes about demons the right way.

Apparitions stars Martin Shaw as Father Jacob Mays. Mays is tasked with examining potential miracles for canonization. But as Mays sets out, he begins to come into contact with dark forces in need of some exorcising. Apparitions is an excellent miniseries that has a shockingly complete perspective on how the Catholic Church operates.

Watch Apparitions on Amazon

Best Horror TV Shows on Amazon - Ghost Stories

Ghost Stories

“Come with me to a place of wondrous contradictions, a place that is silent and unstirring, yet restless and alive. A place of untold peace and boundless dread. Come with me into the very cradle of darkness, where those who dwell, dwell alone.”

Thus actor Rip Torn ushers viewers in to each episode of Ghost Stories, an American horror anthology series that ran for 44 episodes in the late nineties. It’s the expected things-that-go-bump-in-the-night deal, tales of hauntings, vengeful ghosts, possessions and poltergeists, all dramatised in neat half hour instalments. A show bearing the same name and hosted by Patrick Macnee is also available on the U.S. and U.K. Amazon Prime.

Watch Ghost Stories on Amazon

Ad – content continues below

Most Haunted

There may be no better evidence for Western society’s insatiable appetite for creepies than the existence of British series Most Haunted. This is pretty much your standard “ghost huntin'” docuseries. But what makes it truly unique is its longevity.

The show features Yvette Fielding and a rotating cast of paranormal investigators and has run for a staggering 290 episodes over 24 seasons. And there’s still more to come! That’s just some of the fun you can have when you live in the ancient ghostly paradise that is the British Isles.

Watch Most Haunted on Amazon