5 shows that are basically horror movies (and perfect for Halloween)
By Reed Gaudens
4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
What’s more horrifying than high school? Oh, maybe just a high school centered on a literal hellmouth. The teenage experience can feel as though it’s teeming with demons and hellish creatures, but for Buffy Summers and her friends, all of their angst was magnified by real demons and hellish creatures. Buffy the Vampire Slayer brought the true American horror story to life for seven seasons, and it’ll still give you a fright like the first time you watched it.
Although not an outright horror series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer make your jump out of your skin when it really wanted to. But more often than not, the series undercut its horror-leaning themes with humor and relatable teen drama amid the continuous parade of monsters send from the hellmouth to take down the slayer. Buffy and the Scooby Gang helped keep the peace for the human race, no matter if they were tied up in rocky romances or college exams.
The scariest episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer include the season 4 selections “Fear, Itself,” in which the gang’s greatest fears come to life on Halloween, and “Hush,” a mostly silent episode thanks to the creep factor of The Gentlemen. Other episodes that will keep you from reaching for horror movies are season 7’s “Conversations with Dead People” and “Same Time, Same Place,” season 2’s “Killed By Death,” and season 6’s “After Life,” among many other classics.
Similar scares: The six seasons of NBC’s Grimm traversed the occult with a police procedural spin on the fight against mythological creatures and other chilling supernatural occurrences.