With so many coming at us from all sides, it’s easy to forget the ones that carved out a special place in history – the shows or telefilms that dared to go beyond the status quo and push the limits of what was considered possible on the small screen. Today, we are going to look at the most influential made-for-TV horror. Shows and movies that changed how we look at TV horror from the time they aired. As always, let us know what you think and if we missed one that’s on your list.
10 Influential Horror TV Shows and Movies
Shock Till You Drop looks at the horror television shows and movies that shaped today's TV landscape in the genre.
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#10
Movie Macabre (1981-1985): Horror hosts were nothing new on television. Fom Zacherle to Ghoulardi, they were a constant in the U.S. But something changed in 1981, when local station, Channel 9, introduced Movie Macabre, hosted by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Elvira was a revelation with her ample cleavage and sexy double entendres, but what she did was just as groundbreaking. Elvira introduced an entire generation to European Horror. Many well-regarded classics, though you didn’t know it at the time because Elvira had fun with them. She was the first horror host to go national. She gave us horror we rarely saw on TV, and by doing so, she opened up the flood gates with imitators bringing even more obscure and foreign classics to homes across America.
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#9
Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot (1979): Stephen King’s books are so dense that turning them into films in the traditional sense is damn near impossible. After trying for some time to no avail, the decision was made to bring Salem’s Lot to TV. This would change the idea of TV adaptions and prove a successful test for Stephen King material. King wrote a few original pieces for TV after this, though it would take a while to produce the next Stephen King miniseries. After IT was a smash hit in the early-'90s, this became the preferred venue and remained so for a decade, ushering in many other horror novels-to-miniseries adaptions.
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#8
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003): Buffy is the modern day horror classic. The reason why Buffy lasted and influenced is simple. It was group therapy of teens. Buffy had real problems. Though there were little truly scary episodes in the traditional sense, each season dealt with the pains of life and amplified them with horror. The show gave you life as it is. You don’t always get what you want and sometimes, you get what you deserve, which goes both ways. Buffy made it OK to be human while fighting monsters on TV. By the end of the series, I hated her with a passion. She was broken and cold and I didn’t care. That’s the beauty of the show. It wanted to be real, no matter the cost. Without Buffy, there would be no Supernatural or any of the similar shows that have tried and failed.
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#7
Dark Shadows (1966-1971): Dark Shadows was a strange show. Everything about it was different. The thing is that though it was a daytime soap, it played to the strengths of a primetime audience. It was so wildly different that you couldn’t help but be sucked in. It brought vampires to TV in a serious and ferocious way that had not been seen before. Just as interesting, it played with time travel and parallel universes. Things which are common place now. It was ahead of its time in every way and still continues to influence horror television, whether they know it or not.
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#6
Fox’s Werewolf (1987-1988): There was always a separation from what you could do on TV and what you could do in the movies. This was always problematic for TV shows. When KTTV channel 11 became FOX, it wanted to separate itself from the pack by changing how it did things. Its first horror show was Werewolf in 1987! The effects were created by Rick Baker, but are closer to Rob Bottin’s werewolves from The Howling. This was the first time you got Hollywood level effects of this magnitude on television. Unfortunately, it was an expensive show, so it could only be produced as a half hour series which didn’t serve the story. Either way though, it proved that there was an audience for horror on TV and that you could go after the big guns in Hollywood and produce a movie of the week for TV. This show deserves more credit.
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#5
Twin Peaks (1990-1991): Who killed Laura Palmer was the question on everyone’s mind. She was such a nice girl wasn’t she? Twin Peaks raised the bar on adult themes on TV. When you break it down to its bare essentials, the show is about molestation, murder, drugs, prostitution, adultery, and other bedroom sports. Not only that, but with high school girls at the center of it. There were demons and spirits, and even the logs could talk. Twin Peaks wasn’t just about what you could show, but what you could play out as a theme, week after week. It remains maybe the most taboo weekly series ever to air on network.
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#4
The Twilight Zone (1959-1964): The Twilight Zone was, in many ways, the end of innocence as far as genre was concerned. An anthology series that focused on a different circumstance each week. Though we had monsters and people died in films, never was it disturbing. What The Twilight Zone did was haunt you. Your main protagonist rarely died. What they got was worse. They were trapped, lost in uncertainty, or living a nightmare for eternity. The Twilight Zone was emotionally bleak and played on the simple objects around us, making a diner or a corn field the most frightening places on Earth. We fear the unknown, but The Twilight Zone dealt with it as their stock and trade. When we finished an episode, the only thing that was certain is Uncertainty. That’s what was truly terrifying.
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#3
The X –Files (1993-2002): It almost seems like X-Files has been forgotten, but there was a time when this series was the only thing to watch on TV. It was subtle and eerie and best of all, always left you wanting more. The X-Files was the show that dared to trust the audience to be intelligent and by doing so, upped the ante on television writing. X-files gave birth to Millennium, Lost, Fringe, and so many other clones, I have lost count. X-Files is to modern horror on TV what Psycho is to modern horror cinema. Without it, we may not be where we are.
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#2
The Walking Dead (2010-Present): I’ve said it time and again. I hate this comic the way I hate most George Romero zombie movies. It just drags on and on. That being said, the show is mostly good and has changed the landscape of television forever. Every network, whether cable or regular, started pushing the envelope on gore and adult writing to try and match The Walking Dead’s success. Hannibal, The Following, the list goes on. The little cable show that few thought would work has risen to dominate horror TV today.
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#1
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1962): When Hitchcock decided to do television, it changed forever. He was so sophisticated and so theatrical that his program ushered in a new era in programing. Everything he did was smart and also had a sense of black humor about it. This is the formula that gave birth to Tales from the Darkside, Tales from the Crypt, and more. Hell, Psycho was shot with this same crew and conditions. Dare I say that without Alfred Hitchcock Presents, we may have never gotten Psycho, and horror on TV, or the movies, may not be what it is.
