Aside from 2018 being a great year for horror movies, it’s also a year we saw some phenomenal horror/thriller television programs! The Haunting of Hill House! Castle Rock! The Sinner! The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina! The Terror! The Alienist!
This was a year where horror television shows, much like horror movies, were given nuance and heart, meaning they could really dig into some of the deep-rooted fears of the human psyche.
My two favorite horror shows of the year were The Haunting of Hill House and Castle Rock.
In the movie Crimson Peak the narrator says some shit like “this is not a ghost story, this is just a story that happens to have ghosts”, and that really sums up The Haunting of Hill House. I mean, aside from being a totally scary ghost story, the show mostly (beautifully) deals with how trauma and grief effect a family. The show follows the five Crane siblings in both current day and flashback, as it reflects on their horrific childhood in a haunted house and their mother’s death, and how the trauma and grief from their time at Hill House effects them all as adults. The characters of Liv (their mother) and Theodora Crane are enough of a reason to watch the show, though the entire fucking cast is brilliant and the show will make you ache to your core.
As a huge Stephen King fan, Castle Rock was boner city for me. It featured familiar King movie faces (Sissy Spacek and Bil Skargaard, to name a few), the familiar town of Castle Rock, the familiar prison of Shawshank. Tons of other little Kind Easter eggs are plotted throughout the show (like Jack’s niece, Jackie Torrence), but most importantly, you don’t need to be a king fan to enjoy the show because it’s just genuinely intriguing and fucked up. I am truly stoked for season two.