Television is a unique medium. It’s much more intimate than the movies, but less formal than the theater. It can be a joyous group experience or a thoughtful emotional journey for an individual. You can find a show that becomes your whole world. A story that lives in the back of your head rent free for the rest of your life. The lives and deaths of the characters on the screen become core memories that shape one’s perception of the world. All the while the majority of the people around you have no idea the show ever existed.

With that in mind, I wanted to share the television shows that shaped my reality with you…

…my audience of 3-5 regular readers.

I appreciate you and hope you are having nothing but success and happiness, whatever your pursuits may be.

Enough pleasantries, let me show you how much of a horror nerd I am.

I’ve always wanted to be a tabletop gamer. but never had any friends who participated in the hobby nearby. That didn’t stop me from enjoying the lore. I read 30-40 books per year and more than half of them are Warhammer, Vampire the Masquerade, or Dungeon and Dragons related. Anyone who knows me, knows how in love I am with Warhammer 40k and always have been. So it’ll be shocking to hear, it’s not my favorite lore—it’s just the most ubiquitous of my favorites. My heart will always belong to Vampire the Masquerade.

Kindred: the The Embraced is a primetime dramatic horror series set in the World of Darkness universe. Hollywood (especially Marvel) has often stolen and bastardized elements from the Vampire the Masquerade lore—especially in Blade comics and films. Now, VTM wasn’t the first to introduce Clans to the idea of vampires, but it was the first to expound upon the private lives of these immortal monsters.

Kindred exemplifies this idea. This is a Dramatic interpersonal story that just happens to feature vampires. Are there horrific monsters and brutal violence? Yes, but a gorefest this is not. Kindred is much closer to The Sopranos than Buffy. The writing is thoughtful and insightful, and everyone I know that watched the show—which is a number smaller than my average readership—has a different character or clan.

It helps that the cast is one of the best ever assembled. Look at this list of living legends: Jeff Kober, C. Thomas Howell, Brian Thompson, Patrick Bauchau, and the breathtaking Stacy Haiduk and that’s only series regulars. There were soon-to-be stars who appeared in guest appearances that include the likes of Titus Welliver, Emile Hirsch, Ivan Sergei, and Nicky Katt.

This isn’t a monster of the week show like all the other shows of its time. In that, it was unusual and also why it failed. It was ahead of its time. It was a long form, character driven narrative that told an ongoing story which tied up most all storylines by the end of the season.

I haven’t seen it available on streaming, but luckily it was put out on DVD in the US and Blu-ray in PAL markets as a single complete series, boxed set.

What if I told you that the guy who created the X-Files produced a show that was a mix of Netflix’s Mindhunter and the dark, gritty satanic vibe of The First Power?

No, I’m not making it up.

Millenium was so far ahead of its time that we only now, decades later, are seeing its influence. This show is one of the most groundbreaking televisions productions ever to make live TV. The level and variety of horror provided was intense, brutal, and honestly shocking to see on primetime television. My family never missed an episode, until FOX began moving it around on their schedule making it impossible to keep up with. The level of violence and the gritty realism of the show was something only seen on HBO or Showtime.

The show focuses on retired FBI profiler Frank Black on the verge of the new millennium. He uses his borderline supernatural ability to get inside the mind of killers to investigate unusual cases for the Millennium Group, a mysterious organization devoted to investigating Ritualistic killers and occult phenomena. As the days tick down to the year 2000, Frank begins to notice an increase in his caseload. The number of cases is far beyond anything he’s ever seen before and the brutality therein, more so. As darkness begins to encircle Frank and his family, he must battle the demons within and without in order to ensure his family survives until the new Millennium.

It was really hard to summarize the show as the seasons escalate the occult and supernatural elements season to season just like a serial killer escalates their crimes. The first season is more of a monster-of-the-week show revolving around a different killer every week with an underlying mystery ongoing. From there it transitions to long form storytelling in season 2.

The show was shot in a gritty style reminiscent of 1995’s Se7en.

This is my second favorite television show of all time.

Boom, there it is.

Do you remember the golden age of creepy pastas? You know, Jake the Killer, The Rake, and Search and Rescue Woods?

Nick Antosca does.

Antosca is one of the most prolific writers in the horror genre since 2012, having written for television shows like MTV’s Teen Wolf, NBC’s Hannibal, and Netflix’s Brand New Cherry Flavor. When you add in the other television series and films he’s written, there’s a good chance you’ve seen something he’s worked on, even if you didn’t know it.

With Channel Zero, he condensed some of the most popular online CreepyPasta stories from the early days of internet storytelling in four seasons of the best television I’ve ever seen. If you don’t know what a CreepyPastas are, think of them like urban legends. They are scary stories spread across the community, but instead of being a verbal tradition, the stories were proliferated on websites like Reddit, Tumblr, and 4Chan. Things like Slenderman, Jake the Killler, and The Rake swept across the internet like wildfire. But just as quickly as they started, they were gone. It was an organic, online movement at the beginning that became corporatized and full industry plants just as quickly as any other community event.

Channel Zero encapsulates the look and feel of that brief time of collaborative brilliance.

Channel Zero spans 4 seasons with some better than others. In my opinion, the series peaked with season three. I may be biased, as it is based on Search and Rescue Woods—my favorite creepy pasta series. Also, it stars Rutger Hauer, one of the all time greats. Ever season features stars from the horror genre. We’re talking people like Barbara Crampton, Steven Weber, Julian Richings, and Marina Kerr.

CreepyPasta isn’t meant to scare the pants off of you, or to be nothing but constant jump scares. It's meant to creep you out, hence the name. The show is no different.

Brilliant writing and atmosphere alongside fantastic special effects and musical score make this series a must watch.

As of this writing the show is streaming exclusively on Shudder.

This one stings.

I don’t think I related to any show more than Eerie Indiana.

I was a latchkey kid, and my parents were rarely there for events or everyday life. Which led to be being overly invested in the media I consumed as a kid. I used the television along with comics and novels to search for heroes to look up to. Most live action kids shows in the early 90’s revolved around beautiful people having beautiful, 1st world issues and while I loved Saved by the Bell, I could never relate to it. I was an ugly kid, and I was constantly reminded of that both at home and at school. So, it was hard to root for the handsome guy with all the friends having the horrific situation of have 2 dates on the same night.

Just didn’t click, y’know?

Then I found Eerie Indiana.

Only running from 1991 to 1992, the show was everything I was looking for.

The show focused on Marshall Teller, a young boy whose family just moved to the weirdest place on earth. Eerie, Indiana has a population of 16,661, no more, no less. How could that be with people coming and going constantly? That’s just the first of many questionable things Marshall discovers as he investigates his new town. Alongside his best friend Simon, Marshall sets out to record and document the weirdness of his new home.

The show was made with heavy input from film legend and director of my favorite werewolf movie of all time, The Howling as well as Gremlins, Innerspace, and others. His love of classic science fiction and horror shines through in every scene and with him behind the camera for the majority of the episodes—the visual style is impeccable. It has a creepy, over-exposed and uncanny valley 50’s style—which only Marshall and Simon seem to notice as the story takes place in modern day.

Starring 90’s icon Omri Katz alongside genre legends like John Aston, Jason Marsden, Tobey Maguire, Henry Gibson, and Danielle Harris—this show got the most out of the measly 19 episode Fox Kids rationed it.

Luckily, the entire series is free to stream on multiple platforms including Amazon Prime and Freevee.

Have you ever watched a show that was so groundbreaking, intense, and beyond anything you’d expect to see on T.V.?

I can count a handful of shows that have broken barriers enough to fit that criteria. We’re talking the greats like Dexter, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Six Feet Under.

Sometimes one of these shows is too groundbreaking, especially in the mid 90’s. Executive like Michael Eisner didn’t have patience for nuanced storytelling, or character building. If a show didn’t succeed right away, even if its in a shitty time slot or mismatched lead-in, it was cancelled or shuffled around the schedule until it just vanished.

That was my experience with American Gothic. I got hooked on the pilot episode, but when I tried to tune in to find out more, the show had been moved to a different time slot—or the episodes were broadcast out of order. Come to find out, there’s even 4 episodes that never made air. It’s criminal that CBS just tanked this show that could have been a massive hit.

The show focuses on a Caleb Temple, recently orphaned after the murder of his older sister. His mother committed suicide after child birth, and his father was never in the picture. So, his older sister was his entire world. When she passes, he’s terrified that he will be the ward of the devilish town sheriff, but at the last minute his cousin Gail arrives from out of town. Together with Caleb and the ghost of his murdered sister, they must navigate the darkening confines of Trinity, South Carolina and solve the mystery behind Sheriff Buck’s unholy power before it’s too late.

I struggled to summarize the show, because I don’t want to spoil the unrelentingly brutal storytelling. This is a show where all bets were off, anything could happen. People always said Lost was the first show of its kind, but American Gothic did it prior and did it better. This show went into heavy topics, like rape, suicide, murder, and did not hold back. I remember being blown away with how tasteful and horrific the violence was. It wasn’t gory, but the fact that you knew what was happening off screen

and it’s not written as a mystery box. The writers knew the story they wanted to tell. It’s just a shame CBS didn’t believe in the show at all, because the casting director put together one of the most incredible casts ever assembled. Look at the series regulars: Sarah Paulson, Lucas Black, Jake Weber, Nick Searcy, Paige Turco, and the man, the myth, THE Gary Cole.

Not to mention the recurring characters who went on to big careers too, like Evan Rachel Wood.

Fantastic effects, soundtrack, and acting combined with nuanced writing and the hard edge you expect from Southern Gothic storytelling.

Unfortunately, as of this writing—it's only available to purchase on DVD and digital.

I highly recommend you check it out. It’s worth the budget price on Prime Video or Youtube.

Did you ever wish The Twilight Zone was 100% about creatures and creature stories? Did you ever watch the outer limits and think, this could be funnier?

Then I think you’d really love 1988’s Monsters.

This was the perfect show for a kid like me. By the age of 7, my parents had me spend my summers going to art classes at the community college. I was classic trained in oils and sculpture, and as a massive horror fan—I moved toward special effects. I always kinda rooted for the monsters. Maybe it was because I just couldn’t relate to the good looking, successful heroes. I was always an ugly kid, so it wasn’t a stretch for me to empathize with Frankenstein’s Monster or the Gillman. I was always disappointed in the end when the monster gets driven away or killed. It was boring frankly, and the main reason I wrote my 90’s horror-adventure series The Killing Heart. But I never would have written those books if not for Monsters.

This show was low budget to the extreme as it was one of the original shows on SyFy channel back in the late 80’s. When a show is given a low budget, the expectations are immediately reduced. That’s not always a bad thing, as lower expectations normally goes hand in hand with lower oversight. If a network thinks a show is going to fail, the creators can normally get away with filming the show they wanted. What producer is going to want to have their feedback credited on a sure-to-be stinker? This is exactly what happened with Monsters. Unlike many of its contemporaries like Tales from the Darkside and Amazing Stories, Monsters was strictly horror. It ran the gamut of the genre with stories based on the works of Robert Bloch, Manly Wade Wellman, W.C. Morrow, and the Maine-man himself Stephen King. The great thing about the stories being told is the bad guy could win, the monster might kill the hero, or just run off with his girlfriend. Sky was the limit. There are so many episodes of this show that still come to mind.

My favorite episode of the series is called Pool Sharks. It involved a game to the death, but not in the way you think.

This show should have gone on longer, but the three seasons we got were better than expected and the fact we actually got three seasons of a horror show—single tear for Friday The 13th: the series and Freddy’s Nightmares—is incredible.

You need to see this show, even if you don’t like horror. Watch it for the cast alone! Every episode is an all-star line-up starring the likes of Steve Buscemi, Soupy Sales, David Spade, Leif Garrett, Linda Blair, and on and on…

This is streaming free on prime, freevee, and I think many other places. Check it out.

The Horror TV that Shaped Me

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