Top Ten Horror Themed Series

[jimbo]

For entertainment purposes only-this website rates DS at number...............................

http://www.horror-movies.ca/horror_11964.html

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Any list is going to be subjective, but I definitely have problems with this one - and I suspect many people would agree with me.

I LOVE Dexter, but should it really be considered a horror themed show? Sure, he's a serial killer, and the show features dead body parts and lots of blood. But is being a serial killer necessarily horror themed? Not in my book. And Dexter himself doesn't come across as a horror character to me. And if dead body parts and lots of blood are an automatic factor in being a horror program, then all three CSI shows could also be on the list - though I certainly don't think they belong there either.

And I'm sorry, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer is far superior to both Friday the 13th The Series and Kolchak: The Nightstalker. Buffy works on so many different levels, from pure horror to soaring allegory. As enjoyable as those two shows might be, neither could ever hope to compete with Buffy's level of complexity!!


As far as DS goes, what the hell does being "dry (almost to the point of being brittle) at times" mean?

[Barnabas'sBride]

I'm glad to see both Buffy and Supernatural (a personal favorite) on the list, but both of them are better than the top two choices, as is DS.

[GooberCollins]

I strongly disagree with the list. As many horror series as I can come up with here now:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Angel
3. Dark Shadows
4. Twin Peaks

And I kind of dawdle off from there. I love Buffy and Angel because of everything about them; the characters, the mythology, the plots, the level of intelligence... yeah, everything. Dark Shadows I place at #3 because, for all my gentle poking at the show (or outright mocking in the case of a few areas which I won't go into here), I really, really like the show. It's not as good as Buffy by any means, at least in my opinion, but you have to consider what they did. Buffy and Angel together racked up 266 damn fine hours of television over 8 years; DS managed to do over 600 of generally good quality in around 5. Speaking of damn fine things, #4. I feel Twin Peaks was probably a better show than Dark Shadows, but I find Dark Shadows far more endearing, and this is my favorites, not what I think is the best. The X-Files and Death Note make honorable mention due to me not having seen all of them but knowing that I basically like them. If I saw all of them and liked them as much as I have what I've seen, I'd probably slide Death Note into #4 and The X-Files into #5, knocking Twin Peaks down a bit.

Those are really the only six horror shows I've watched to any extent, not counting anthologies like Tales from the Darkside and The Twilight Zone. I've watched shows with various degrees of the supernatural, from Lost to Beauty and the Beast to Charmed, but I wouldn't consider any of them horror shows. I definitely feel DS deserves to be higher up on the list than some of the shows on there, particularly shows like Friday the 13th. I've never liked "wanderer" shows where the main character(s) are off on some sort of adventure that has no real meaning in the grand scheme of the series; they're anthologies under the veneer of true series. But those are just my opinions.

And calling DS dry is a bit ridiculous. Even when they were repeating past storylines, like the ghost of whatever couple it is this year, or in a rut, like during HoDS's filming where every episode began with Barnabas's chained coffin, as if to say, "Here he is!", the show didn't feel dry to me.

[MagnusTrask]

DS, Night Stalker.... Twilight Zone.... X-Files.... not sure what else I'd pick.     All those forensics cop shows might qualify as bad horror.

[Willie Loomis]

As far as DS goes, what the hell does being "dry (almost to the point of being brittle) at times" mean?

don't know, but if it weren't for Dark Shadows, none of the other shows on that list would be there, wouldn't you say? 

[Gothick]

That's a very idiosyncratic list.  The Addams Family is comedy, not horror.  Still, I get a kick out of the notion that somebody out there thinks the dear old Night Stalker was the greatest horror show of all time.  And who knew anyone even remembered the very short lived Werewolf series of the late Eighties? 

My attitude to lists in general can be summed up by this bit of critique offered by Miss Jean Brodie:  "For those who like that sort of thing--that is the sort of thing that they like."

G.

[GooberCollins]

I would have considerably more respect for the list if it had been compiled by more than one person. It seems more like the author's favorites than anything else. And The Addams Family was just Gothic dark comedy. Even the oddest bits, like Cousin It and Thing, were just odd, not horrifying in any way.