The greatest single seasons slices of small screen terror.
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00:00There is so much horror TV out there that it can be pretty overwhelming knowing where to start.
00:05Decades and decades of different styles and trends and focuses and monsters and baddies and heroes.
00:11When you look at them all, how are you meant to know what's good and what's not?
00:15You don't want to waste a bunch of time watching things that are just no good and not going anywhere.
00:19And that includes sitting through 14 seasons of a show when really it stops being good after one.
00:24So let's keep things short and we'll tell you where to look for the good stuff.
00:28I'm Amy from WhatCulture and here are the 10 best single horror TV seasons ever.
00:3310. Midnight Mass
00:35A limited series with actually only one season to offer, I thought Midnight Mass was a great place to start here.
00:41Not necessarily because I think this should be lowest on your list of priorities,
00:44but more because I'm saying it first, I'm hoping you'll watch it first.
00:48Released in 2021, this Mike Flanagan offering made a fantastic addition to his already highly regarded list of horror TV shows.
00:55Set on a remote fishing island plagued by a host of issues following a past oil spill,
01:00this supernatural horror series has more scares to offer than you initially think.
01:04Managing to work on a psychological level, looking at the residents' isolation, complex relationships,
01:09and their fear of the future in an unstable world, it uses its supernatural vampiric baddies as a vehicle for the horror.
01:15It's not all flying Draculas and sucking blood out of virgins.
01:19Instead, it's cleverly framed against a backdrop of fanatical religion,
01:22emphasising society's flaws as a whole in supporting our people,
01:26and on leaning on religion when maybe we should be leaning on each other sometimes.
01:30There's gore and guts, but there's also discussions of life and consciousness itself,
01:34and moments so perfectly pitched in emotion that they will make you weep.
01:38Also, there's Rahul Kohli as a brooding sheriff with a troubled past.
01:41At this point, need I say more?
01:439. Lovecraft Country Season 1
01:46Blending horror and drama, fiction and fact,
01:49HBO's Lovecraft Country seemed destined to become one of the modern greats of TV.
01:53Claudettes from critics and viewers led to showrunner Misha Green starting to map out a second season,
01:58when it was surprisingly announced by HBO that they would not be pushing forward with this.
02:03Added to that, ratings for Lovecraft Country were decent,
02:05and the series was nominated for a massive 18 Emmy Awards,
02:08picking up two Emmy wins for its one season.
02:11Lovecraft Country was dripping with quality all across production,
02:14dropping many of H.P. Lovecraft's creations into the landscape of segregated 1950s America.
02:19The tale itself initially focused on Atticus Freeman traveling across Jim Crow USA in search of his father,
02:25and it's a story where Jonathan Major's Atticus faces racism that's just as troubling as any one of the Lovecraftian monsters.
02:32The show looks glorious, the performances are mesmerizing,
02:36and the series brings far more than simply classic scares.
02:39It's a crying shame that for whatever reason,
02:42Lovecraft Country only got the one season to wow us.
02:48This one could be controversial, saying that Murder House was the best of all the series of American Horror Story,
02:53because I know everyone has a very different opinion on that.
02:55But still, with the insane amount of seasons it now has under its belt,
02:59you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone that disagreed that the first few seasons were the best.
03:03And its very first season, Murder House, was certainly the most memorable.
03:07One of the great things about this first American Horror Story offering is that none of us knew what to expect.
03:12This was a fresh, sleek show that wasn't afraid to shock in twisted and at times tragic ways,
03:18with the Harmon family moving into the titular house and slowly falling apart in their new surroundings.
03:23Throw in a subplot centered around a school shooting and the sobering imagery of the act,
03:27and Murder House genuinely had most of us in awe, and that is for reasons both good and bad.
03:32Regardless of the varying quality of subsequent seasons,
03:35American Horror Story is famed for its fantastic ensemble casts and stellar performances.
03:40And frankly, since Murder House, that ensemble and those performances have simply never been bested.
03:45Of course, there has to be special praise here for the marvelous Jessica Lange as a sniping, sinister neighbor.
03:50Ever since she left the series, things have not been the same.
03:57I myself was a huge fan of Stranger Things Season 2, but I know that I might be quite alone on that.
04:02And now, with the fourth season creeping ever closer, the show has a hell of a lot to live up to.
04:07All three prior seasons of this behemoth of a show have been incredibly strong,
04:11but nothing has yet to quite eclipse the debut year of the Duffer Brothers series.
04:15Part horror, part sci-fi, part kid-friendly, and part bringing the sort of scores that'll unsettle any adults in the room,
04:21Stranger Things ticks so many boxes and appeals to so many.
04:25Set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana in 1983,
04:28this show started off hot by introducing mysterious monsters and the Upside Down.
04:32It threw in the disappearance of young Will Byers and gave us the unique, all-powerful figure of the ego-devouring Eleven.
04:39And that's just in the very first episode.
04:41Stranger Things is a mainstream pop culture phenomenon these days,
04:44and the show was positioned in that spot thanks to how immediately it struck a chord
04:47and became water cooler and schoolyard chatter as soon as it debuted on Netflix back in 2016.
04:52Few series have managed to become as instantly popular, and then sustain that popularity, as Stranger Things.
04:58And that's testament to just how fantastic that debut season was.
05:04It feels like barely a month goes by where there's not some speculation that Hannibal could be back for a fourth season,
05:10with star Mads Mikkelsen only recently talking about the chances of just such a return.
05:15Of course, the reason that there's still hope of season four is because the passionate fans of Hannibal are forever keeping the show in the public eye.
05:21Such was the quality of the series, it's so disappointing that it was just curbed at three 13-episode seasons.
05:27Still, though, what a three-season run it was.
05:30Very much a game of cat and mouse by this point.
05:32The first half of the season has Hugh Dancy's FBI agent, Will Graham, locked up and desperately trying to prove his innocence,
05:39all whilst Mikkelsen's Hannibal Lecter manipulates the situation to gleefully keep Will imprisoned.
05:44Once freed, Dancy's character would get closer and closer to Lecter,
05:47that is, until the spectacular season finale left audiences reeling as Will joined Jack and Alana in being left to bleed to death as Hannibal strolls free.
05:56Hannibal, and in particular its second season, show that you can do smart, thoughtful horror and still make it delightfully gory and twisted when called for.
06:055. The Walking Dead Season 4
06:07Few TV shows have once been so hot, then gradually become so cold as The Walking Dead.
06:13When it's been good, The Walking Dead has been the absolute best horror show on TV.
06:18But the problem is that when the series has been bad, it's been utterly dire.
06:23In terms of the best season from the series so far, that honor goes to one of them in the first few, but the debate is very hot as to which.
06:30For argument's sake, we're gonna say Season 4, because that seemed to be the opposite consensus.
06:34With Frank Darabond at the helm, The Walking Dead's debut season was brilliant and very much in the conversation for the show's greatest run.
06:41However, it's the fourth year of shuffling undead action that edges that out there,
06:45and in fact, a large part of what made Season 4 so special is its use of the series' first great villain.
06:51We'd seen Shane framed as a no-good rogue previously, but in David Morrissey's Governor, we had a thorough bastard at the highest order.
06:58Having been introduced in the year prior, the fourth season of The Walking Dead had the Governor truly cement his spot amongst the great modern-day villains of TV.
07:07Here, there's the introduction of Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, and Tara.
07:10There's the shocking beheading of beloved Hershel by the Governor.
07:13Remember we also get those really poignant flashbacks to Michonne's life as a mother,
07:17and the heartbreaking look-at-the-flowers moment which haunts everyone still?
07:21Honestly, I could sit here all day and just list great moments.
07:25Regardless of whether you agree that Season 4 was the absolute best, you have to admit that it was so incredibly strong.
07:34A fairly recent addition to my mental library of horror TV,
07:37All of Us Are Dead offers something a bit different from everything else on this list,
07:41in that it's the only one not from the good old US of A, or at least anywhere in the West.
07:46Most of us are guilty of failing to really enjoy international TV and cinema,
07:51but as many of us found when this started being pushed on Netflix,
07:54we have been really missing out if we're not looking into it.
07:57This Korean limited series follows a group of teens who find themselves trapped at school as a zombie outbreak begins,
08:03all with a new take on the zombie virus, a great host of lovable characters, and some incredibly well-crafted emotional moments.
08:11Whilst not exactly being a straight-cut horror-comedy, it does lean into a good bit of humor,
08:15aided by this and the romantic undertones, although they're not exactly low-key, so maybe more romantic overtones,
08:21the show manages to keep its forward momentum even when things are looking a bit bleak.
08:26Visually fantastic, wonderfully acted, and directed in a way that'll have you binging the whole damn thing without a second thought,
08:32All of Us Are Dead is an all-round delight,
08:35and if you're looking for some horror TV on Netflix that isn't just directed by, like, one of the same three guys,
08:40I'm sorry, Mike Flanagan, but you're too damn powerful,
08:42search this up, and I promise you will have a good time.
08:48Whilst it also works as a drama series or a thriller, Twin Peaks is undoubtedly a prime piece of horror television.
08:55Well, at least the first and third seasons are. The less we say about the second season, the better.
08:592017's Twin Peaks The Return was phenomenal, yet it's hard to look past the show's debut year when looking at the all-time great seasons of horror TV.
09:08The basic premise of that first season was the question of who killed Laura Palmer,
09:12yet in reality, Twin Peaks was so, so much more.
09:15Whilst some of the seasons featured elsewhere on this list revolve around jump scares, terrifying creatures, or supernatural shenanigans,
09:22Twin Peaks was a meticulous slice of psychological horror.
09:25The mystery of Laura's death was the driving force of this first season,
09:29but it was the journey, not the destination, that really counted in the search for her truth,
09:34as the wiggling, windy unraveling of this puzzle really had audiences hooked.
09:38The tension and fear are crafted expertly, as all the dread is amped up through trippy dream sequences, chilling visuals, and an exquisite use of sound.
09:47For all the amazing stuff they did for the story arc in Season 1, it's a shame that they scuppered it all within seven episodes of Season 2.
09:57In terms of single-season stories, few slices of horror television have ever been as consistently brilliant, and obviously terrifying, as The Haunting of Hill House.
10:06Sure, it was followed up by Bly Manor, which was really good and I genuinely did enjoy it,
10:11but despite featuring many of the same cast, Bly Manor was an entirely different story, with different characters, and a very different vibe.
10:18It was well-made, the story was good, and of course, the actors were phenomenal, but it just couldn't quite live up to the standard that Hill House set.
10:25Set across two different timelines, The Haunting of Hill House revolved around the Crane family,
10:29their time having previously been spent living in the titular abode.
10:33The show explores the terrors they experienced during this time, and the long-lasting impact Hill House still has on them 26 years later.
10:40This Mike Flanagan-crafted show, you know, I told you it was already too powerful, is loosely adapted from Shirley Jackson's novel of the same name,
10:47and truthfully, it's everything you want from a horror series.
10:50There is no lag here at all, with each of the ten episodes bringing new information, new twists, and new scares,
10:56and trust me when I say, my good God, it does bring those scares.
11:00Thoughtful, stylish, and delicate, this really is horror TV at its best.
11:041. Bates Motel Season 5
11:07Across all five of its seasons, this A&E offering managed to maintain the sort of consistently high quality we rarely see.
11:15To pinpoint one season as being the series' high point is quite a tough task,
11:19but it's fair to say that Bates Motel has the unique honor of saving its finest season until last.
11:24By the time we reach Season 5, the action has jumped ahead two years from the conclusion of the previous season.
11:29Here, Norma Bates is dead, Detective Romero is locked up in prison, Marion Crane is introduced,
11:35Norman was in full mother mode, and audiences were more than ready to see what the show was going to bring
11:39in terms of its own version of what was originally seen in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho way back in 1960.
11:45Bates Motel is the ideal example of taking an existing IP and reworking it for a new audience,
11:50whilst also staying somewhat faithful to what has come before.
11:53In that final season, the audience had a fear of how this might all end, but there was no need to fear at all,
11:59because when it does end, it does so in the most heartbreaking, inevitable way.
12:03And with that, we've actually reached the end of this list of the 10 best single horror TV seasons ever.
12:09When you call anything the best list, you're gonna get some pushback,
12:12so let me know in the comments below what your actual favorite seasons are.
12:16Are any of these on there? And tell me what seasons you would have put on this list instead.
12:20At the same time, remember to check out WhatCulture.com for more lists and articles like this every single day.
12:26As always, I've been Amy from WhatCulture, and I'll catch you next time.