Why horror series dominate the streaming charts

"Below", "Carrie", "Crystal Lake" Horror in series As of: October 31, 2026 • 12:09 p.m

Horror films have been booming for a long time. But now demons and supernatural horror stories are also conquering the series segment. Are we so jaded that only violence entertains us, or is there more to it?

A sea monster that eats people. A girl with telekinetic powers who destroys an entire high school. A bloody campaign of revenge in a holiday camp. Three horror series, three streaming platforms, three times number one in the respective platform charts in October. The productions “Below” on Netflix, “Carrie” on Amazon Prime and “Crystal Lake” on HBO Max were at the top of the respective providers for several weeks and reached millions of viewers.

The horror boom is not new. Until now, however, the industry has assumed that shared fear is something for the big screen. This year, horror films like “Backrooms” and “Obsession” drew millions of viewers to the cinema. Recent films such as “Blood & Sinners”, “Weapons” and “The Substance” have shown that the genre also has Oscar qualities. But now the wave is also spilling over into the series world.

Films and novels work successfully with the subject of “body horror”. Women are increasingly discovering the genre for themselves. more

Experts attribute the success of horror films to the critical audience's need for catharsis. “You can emotionally train your soul for the horrors of this world for 90 minutes in a fictional setting,” says cultural scientist Mark Schmitt from the Technical University of Dortmund in an interview with NDR. The series is now extending this “training for the soul” to several hours.

A recent example is “Carrie,” a reimagining of Stephen King’s novel. The title character is a girl with telekinetic powers who is bullied at school and takes bloody revenge for it. Series creator Mike Flanagan has moved the plot from the 1970s to the present and incorporated a lot of current social politics.

The main character, Carrie White, is a girl from a Christian fundamentalist home, conspiracy stories and homeschooling included. In the tenth grade she went to a state school for the first time after her father's unexpected death. As soon as you arrive, the bullying begins. Someone creates a fake profile on Instagram that shows embarrassing cell phone videos and pictures of Carrie, taken and uploaded by classmates. A short time later, more content follows, and even teachers get involved. In just a few weeks, "Carrie Red" - that's the name of the bully profile - collects thousands of followers on Instagram.

“Carrie” doesn’t just criticize how brutal social media can be. The series also addresses the broken education system and classes in which students do whatever they want.

The Netflix series "Below" is about a sea monster that terrorizes a fishing village on the coast of Newfoundland. The miniseries can certainly be categorized as an eco-thriller, as it is about man-made environmental destruction and its consequences. Contemporary horror, which also determines the plot in the ZDF series “Der Schwarm” or the video game adaptation “The Last of Us”. What's striking about "Below": With the fishermen, the victims in the series are those who are not responsible for the disaster.

“Crystal Lake” on HBO Max once again addresses the exclusion of people with disabilities - by telling the tragic backstory of Jason Vorhees, the disfigured serial killer from the “Friday the 13th” series. The ZDF media library also focuses on a Stephen King adaptation with the horror-thriller series “The Institute” - the novel, published in 2019, is about, among other things, the loss of empathy in the first term of office of US President Donald Trump. And the horror series “Widows Bay” from the streaming service provider Apple TV, which won 14 Emmys this year, addresses the problems of gentrification and overtourism.

So maybe horror isn't just booming because Halloween is just around the corner. But because our reality may require so much “training for the soul” that 90 minutes are not enough.

This topic in the program: BR | Bayern 2 ignition radio | Oct 29, 2026 | 7:05 p.m