Editorials
Stay Home, Watch Horror: 5 Current Horror Series to Stream This Week
Every week brings announcements for new TV series, and cancellations are often just as frequent. The extended length of a series versus a movie requires a more significant time commitment. The sheer volume of selection available across an endless sea of streaming platforms makes it all the more difficult. The competitive playing field means standing out takes far more effort than ever before. That often means that great series fall through the cracks.
This week’s streaming picks belong to current series worth catching up on, from eccentric supernatural mysteries to biblically-based nightmares. They’re ongoing, which means you can binge all at once until the next season’s release or pace out the episodes.
As always, here’s where you can stream them this week.
30 Coins – HBO Max
Álex de la Iglesia’s series follows Father Vergara (Eduard Fernández), an ex-convict, boxer, and exorcist exiled by the church to be the priest for a remote village in Spain after an exorcism gone wrong. He uses his new post as a means of repressing his past, but that proves tricky when the town becomes under siege by a series of increasingly bizarre events. A cow gives birth to a human baby. Villagers hear voices and turn to aggression. Ouija boards come with added dangers, and reality distorts with increasing frequency. Judas’ 30 pieces of silver paid for Jesus’s betrayal is at the center of it all. They’ll have to team up to fight the forces of Hell and the covert religious organization aiming to collect all 30 coins. Biblical horror has never been as wild or with such creative designs for its entities. While it officially hasn’t been renewed yet for a second season, it’s clear that it’s meant to continue.
Inside No. 9 – Hulu, Britbox
Inside No. 9 is probably one of the greatest shows you’re not watching; if you live outside of the U.K. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s anthology series doesn’t get enough attention stateside. Each 30-minute episode sees the two playing different characters in self-contained stories that run the gamut in style and genre. Pitch black humor tends to run through it all, but episodes vary from gothic to slapstick to flat-out petrifying. No matter the tone, Shearsmith and Pemberton make excellent use of misdirection and always bring the unexpected. Whether genre-centric or genre-adjacent, Inside No. 9 will delight the horror fan regardless. Hulu offers only some of the seasons to binge, while Britbox provides it all.
Nancy Drew – HBO Max
If you grew up with Scooby-Doo or already miss the weekly monster adventures of Supernatural, Nancy Drew offers up the perfect solution. This series follows a more mature version of the teen detective marred by tragedy. Struggling to find direction, Nancy gets drawn into a murder mystery heavily entrenched in the supernatural. The teen sleuth and her often reluctant cohorts frequently get drawn into various cases that put their lives on the line in their seaside town, from deadly curses to child-devouring Lamias and beyond. The series even sprinkles in some fun creatures, and unexpected jump scares.
Evil – Netflix (S1 only), Paramount+
The series follows a skeptical psychologist (Katja Herbers) enlisted by a priest-in-training (Mike Colter) and his tech specialist (Aasif Mandvi) to investigate miracles, possessions, and extraordinary cases. What makes Evil so special is its unique ability to dramatically shift between tones, from absurdist humor to genuine scares, with organic ease. Also impressive is how the series incorporates technology and psychology to cover all aspects of the supernatural. Of course, the creature/demon design is a significant plus. Evil kicked off on CBS but made its move to Paramount+ for season two, and it will be back for an upcoming third season.
Servant – Apple TV+
Created by Tony Basgallop and executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan, Servant follows Philadelphia couple Dorothy and Sean Turner (Lauren Ambrose and Toby Kebbell) mourning the tragic loss of their infant. Dorothy’s profound denial results in her belief that her reborn doll is real, and the couple hires a new nanny Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) to care for it. There’s something extraordinary about Leanne, however, and their lives will never be the same. A psychological horror that keeps its secrets close to its vest, Servant’s distinct atmospheric style will keep you hooked. Above all, it always keeps you guessing, throwing supernaturally driven surprises at you at every turn.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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