10 Reasons 2016 is the Greatest Year for Horror on TV

(10) The Exorcist (FOX)

We’re still waiting on a verdict with this one, as it won’t debut until September 23^rd, but you can bet 20^th Century Fox has huge hopes for the show. Early footage certainly looks impressive and frightening, but the same could be said of Damien, which got the axe midway through the first season. It just wasn’t a very stimulating show and it seemed to move at a snail’s pace. Will The Exorcist follow suit, or do we have another winner on the cusp of arrival?

(09) Wolf Creek (Stan)

I’ve heard some negatives, and I’ve heard some positives. No matter how you slice it, Mick Taylor is Mick Taylor, and that likely means we get to see some gruesome and graphic content. Guest writer Clinton Hester recently covered the entire series, and he sounded quite excited about it, naturally driving my curiosity to the edge of the cliff. Who knows when us Americans get to see this, but we’re looking forward to it!

(08) Hap and Leonard (Sundance)

Hap and Leonard got no love! How can it be that a multi-layered and intricate production like this – handled by Jim Mickle and Nick Damici, no less – doesn’t catch on with viewers? Living Legend Joe R. Lansdale provides the source material from which Mickle and Damici work, and that should only boost the show’s stock even more. Lansdale is the genius who gave us remarkable works in Bubba Ho-Tep, Incident on and Off a Mountain Road, the brutal, borderline horror Batman animated piece, Son of Batman and the extremely dark thriller (almost 8MM in nature) Cold in July. Both James Purefoy and Michael Kenneth Williams have done amazing jobs with Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, respectively, so… what the hell happened you ask? Sundance happened.

It isn’t that Sundance is a failing network. Hell, it’s available to 60 million subscribers, and while that number may not share space at the mountain’s summit with a network like HBO around, accessible to 122 million subscribers worldwide, it’s still a network with a larger audience than say, Showtime, which is available to about 28 million subscribers, or Starz, which can be seen in roughly 30 million American homes. No, it’s not the numbers that have prevented Hap and Leonard from catching on big with genre fans, it’s the simple fact that many fail to associate Sundance with blossoming crime thrillers with horrific little twists. Shows like Rectify, The A Word or Behind the Story are the expected. Fans aren’t necessarily accustomed to looking into content like Hap and Leonard, even if the network has been recently leaning in a darker direction with what’s become a fan-favorite, The Returned.

No matter what fate holds in store for Hap and Leonard, I’m interested in following!

(07) Penny Dreadful (Showtime)

Penny Dreadful is officially a wrap, which may make you think this is an odd pick! Maybe it is, but the show ran through June of this year before having Showtime pull the plug; a maneuver that left a whole hell of a lot of us extremely disappointed and distraught. It’s a great show, and with just three seasons to absorb, it has no chance whatsoever of growing tiresome. It’s stuffed full of legendary monsters, features some excellent writing, sports a ton of breath-taking set pieces. It really was a remarkable show that took a handful of public domain figures and transformed them into something very special. This is arguably our biggest television loss this year, but on the flip side of this depressing little coin comes the fact that we’re probably going to see the third and final season on Blu-ray and DVD soon – with all the fan outrage it’s hard to imagine HBO not expediting the home release process. My fingers are crossed, at least.

All I ask for is one episode in which the Wolfman leaps from some bleachers and rips every monster in the series to bloody, sinewy shreds. That would erase the empty feeling in my gut.

(06) Making a Murderer (Netflix)

Technically speaking, Making a Murderer debuted on Netflix at the very tale end of 2015. It didn’t force the world to turn and stare, wide-eyed, until 2016, when the freight train began barreling through our minds and our televisions. This documentary series transcends thought provoking and leaves viewers totally and utterly perplexed by the first focal case. I don’t want to ruin anything for you (well, I want to, but I won’t), but if you’re not tuning into this informative and addictive show, you need to slap yourself in the face. Watch two episodes and I guarantee you’ll be hooked.

Read on for the conclusion of our official list!