There are several worthy contenders for the best horror TV shows of 2021, with this year seeing a number of truly stellar entries into an oft-maligned television genre. 2021 has been a particularly sparse year for television horror productions, with several highly anticipated chiller series such as Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities and Hulu's From pushed back to 2022 release dates. Yet, despite a rather short list of horror TV shows in 2021, many of those that did release debuted to high critical acclaim, cementing 2021 as a landmark year for quality TV scares.
Returning series make up a large chunk of 2021's best horror TV, with entries such as You season 3 and Servant season 2 delving further into their respective spine-tingling premises. This year has also seen a marked spike in the revival of classic horror IPs for television, with both Chucky and Day of the Dead receiving earnest TV adaptations that pay homage to cornerstone movies of the genre. This current wave of horror-based nostalgia has proven to be equally compelling in converting even lesser-known chillers into an episodic format, with Shudder's Creepshow and Amazon Prime's I Know What You Did Last Summer both proving compelling horror revivals for streaming audiences.
However, the very best horror TV shows of 2021 have instead appeared seemingly from the ether, with several wholly original horror series garnering widespread critical acclaim. From tales of loss and despair in the Ontario wilderness to supernatural, blood-sucking creatures descending on townsfolk, audiences can discernibly pick their proverbial horror poisons from this year's list. Here's an exploration of the best six horror TV shows in 2021, as well as each series ranked.
A decade on from American Horror Story's debut, which introduced unwitting audiences to the terrors of Murder House, series creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk return to flesh out some of the show's scariest (and fan favorite) characters. Functioning as an anthology series designed to tell a differing horror tale each week, American Horror Stories adds canonical weight to the backstories of The Rubber Man, the demon Ba'al, and even the famed Murder House occupants from American Horror Story season 1 themselves. While the first few episodes of American Horror Stories were met with critical indifference, the series undoubtedly picks up in pace and quality as it unfolds, with episode 5, "BA'AL" a particularly chilling anthology entry that lingers in the memory long after the episode has concluded. Murphy and Falchuk are acutely aware that they still retain a fervent fanbase from the original American Horror Story series, and while American Horror Stories does not always hit the consistent heights of its predecessor, it is still a worthy entry for horror television in 2021 that will satisfy new and returning AHS audiences alike.
Another horror TV show in 2021, You season 3 gives the Netflix series its final nudge into horror territory as Joe Golberg (Penn Badgley) becomes less affable and more terrifying in contrast to his idyllic suburban surroundings. While Joe's toxic masculinity has always been glaring, his actions in You season 3 become truly nefarious as the series' protagonist systematically and callously breaks each of his established rules surrounding the objects of his desires. The final cat and mouse game enacted by Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) and Joe is hair-raising, emotion-infused horror at its very best that evokes more than a shade of Glenn Close's Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction, while also providing You with the additional gore season 2's convoluted plot so often lacked.
It may be an oversimplification of Child's Play creator and writer Don Mancini's enduring talents, but at its core, the Chucky reboot is wickedly fun television that hits the highest notes of the Child's Play film series. Chucky sees the titular doll commit a new sequence of mysterious murders in Hackensack, New Jersey, with the series acting as a direct continuation to the 2017 film Cult of Chucky. Chucky predictably borrows the best elements of the Child's Play canon, such as bringing back cast favorites Brad Dourif as Charles Lee Ray and Alex Vincent as Andy Barclay in their iconic roles while retaining the absurd humor and horrifying kill sequences that made the original Chucky films such a success. While Chucky may still prove too nonsensical for detractors of its core premise, fans of the franchise are guaranteed a rip-roaring homage packed with Easter eggs and callbacks that ensure Chucky remains one of the best TV horror series released in 2021.
Midnight Mass' initial episodes threaten to go from a slow boil to a lukewarm affair before the Netflix miniseries crescendos into a final, inescapable climactic episode. The fact that Midnight Mass threatens to fizzle out before shocking and horrifying in equal measure, however, is testament to director and writer Matt Flanagan's perfectly poised vision that gives as much as it takes away from its audience in the final reckoning. At its core, Midnight Mass is a measured reflection on death, faith, guilt, addiction, and the power of free will, but these complex themes are sewn together by a stellar cast that elevates the Netflix series to one of the horror highlights of the year. If for no other reason, Midnight Mass must be watched for Hamish Linklater's stunning performance as Father Paul Hill, Crockett Island's enigmatic, sun-walking, and impassioned new priest with many secrets to keep.
Brand New Cherry Flavor employs an oft-seen, scattergun approach to deploying its horror elements, with zombies, assassins, supernatural felines, and a cursed tattoo artist just some of the curiosities crammed within its eight episodes. However, unlike many of the more deranged tv horror series of late, Brand New Cherry Flavor's narrative scores hit after hit, with its trippy aesthetic and compelling protagonist in Lisa N. Nova (Rosa Salazar) ensuring each lurch of the series' storyline becomes more enthralling than the last. Brand New Cherry Flavor is also somewhat grounded by its revenge motif, which gives Lisa purpose and poise throughout a nightmarish set of events that somehow still play as believable in the context of the Netflix original's zany storyline. Put simply; Brand New Cherry Flavor is an almost indescribable fever dream of a show that must be seen to be believed and, inevitably, thoroughly enjoyed.
The most harrowing facet of Showtime's Yellowjackets is its premise, which amounts to an entirely plausible yet terrifying scenario. Yellowjackets centers on a traveling soccer team's plane crash deep in the Ontario wilderness, which subsequently leaves the wreckage's survivors to descend into hysteria and cannibalism across 19 months until their eventual rescue. While Yellowjackets also visits the crash's surviving members in modern-day flash-forwards, the true meat of the series is its disturbing sequences of survival and despair as the young soccer team inevitably turns on each other at the height of their despair. The real-life-inspired Yellowjackets expertly deals with themes of loss and trauma while still delivering the gut-punch of viscera required of most modern horror TV, making it the undoubted standout horror television series of 2021 en-route to picking up several pending critics' choice nominations for the upcoming end-of-year awards ceremony.
