Scary Fare on Streaming Services 

• Roku Channel
• Bill Burr in Immoral Compass

The Hollywood writers' strike is over, but we're facing a dearth of new horror shows for Halloween season. American Horror Story: Delicate and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon are off to great starts (Kim Kardashian and Norman Reedus—who knew they could act?), but you're going to need more scary stuff in your stream this month. Here are a few options to dig up.

Immoral Compass (2021; The Roku Channel): The episodes are only seven minutes long, but comedian Bill Burr covers plenty of darkly comic ground in Immoral Compass, an anthology series that's essentially a fun-sized Black Mirror. Burr serves as the bleary narrator to a set of awkward tales that aren't so much frightening as they are frighteningly relatable; you'll never admit it, but you'd probably make the same selfish choices as these miserable characters. Immoral Compass is sick, twisted and over far too soon.

From (2022–present; MGM+): The supernaturally inescapable town bit has been done before (Under the Dome, Wayward Pines, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, et al), but From adds the delightful element of nocturnal monsters that will literally eat your face. Harold Perrineu (Lost) and the unwilling residents of The Township may be stuck in a nightmare interstate detour surrounded by a forest of malevolent creatures, but From tempers the terror with unexpected clues that might actually pay off (unlike Lost).

Black Summer (2019–2021; Netflix): Black Summer premiered during the twilight years of The Walking Dead when its bloated assembly of whiny characters nearly outnumbered the undead. With a leaner cast (led by Jaime King), manic camerawork and 28 Days Later-fast zombies, Black Summer navigates the early days of the Z-apocalypse with gritty immediacy and gore-splattering zeal. It also helps that the series only ran for two seasons, wrapping the Stephen King-praised story in 16 tight episodes.

Millennium (1996–1999; YouTube): Millennium's first episode kicked off with the scene of a blood-soaked stripper writhing in front of a wall of flames—quite the attention-grabber for '90s broadcast TV. The X-Files-adjacent series from Chris Carter centers on ex-FBI profiler Frank Black (Lance Henrickson) as he tracks serial killers inspired by the coming Y2K "end time." After the grisly first season, Millennium lightened up its Se7en-esque tone, but not by much. This should be way easier to stream.

FreakyLinks (2000–2001; YouTube): Speaking of shows that are near-impossible to find, FreakyLinks is another long-lost series with a cult following but few traces of its existence (though I do still have a promotional FreakyLinks CD wallet—thanks, Fox). A group of friends runs the video-driven urban legends website FreakyLinks.com, documenting paranormal and cryptid activity with requisite shaky-cam abandon (the series was produced by the Blair Witch Project studio, BTW). Fun show if you can find it.

Dead Set (2008; YouTube): Wishing horrible deaths for Big Brother contestants is perfectly normal, and Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror) did just that by siccing flesh-eating zombies on the cast of that very show in the British satire Dead Set. The reality-show housemates are oblivious to the undead outbreak happening outside of their studio set, not unlike the real American Big Brother during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic (which produced no zombies, as far as anyone knows). Can we get a Real Housewives version, Charlie?

Harper's Island (2009; YouTube): The only way to make a destination wedding scarier is to throw a killer into the mix. One-season-and-done thriller Harper's Island follows murder-spree survivor Abby (Elaine Cassidy) as she returns to the place where her family was slaughtered seven years earlier to attend her best friend's wedding—you could have just sent a panini press, Abs. Over 13 episodes, the killer racks up a body count of 27(!), and the twisty mystery is more satisfying if you don't think too hard about it.