13 Best Slasher TV Series, Ranked

Showrunners need to maintain suspense and high stakes across 8+ episodes without losing momentum. The extra time means less ability to rely on stupid decisions. Plus, television relies much more on audience empathy, which requires more fleshed-out characters than the slasher genre archetypes. That said, it isn't impossible to pull off a great slasher TV show. Some shows lean into the "so bad it's good" category, while others are genuinely phenomenal. If you're looking for your next slasher fix, these thirteen series are the best out there.

13 Hell Motel (2025)

Available To Stream On The Roku Channel, AMC+, & YouTube

Hell Motel premiered on Shudder in 2025, and it’s a show only slasher fans will appreciate. In the show, ten true crime-obsessed strangers get invited to the reopening of the Cold River Motel, the site of a 30-year-old unsolved Satanic massacre. After a hurricane strands them, a masked murderer starts picking them off.

The miniseries is a great whodunnit slasher in the “it’s so bad it’s good” kind of way. Don’t go into it expecting anything top-tier. The acting is charmingly subpar, and the characters make nonsensical decisions. The show is gloriously campy, and the cringe only makes it more entertaining. Plus, Hell Motel features creative kills with over-the-top gore, making it a perfect binge for slasher lovers. The show will continue with season 2, which has completed filming, which could increase its ranking.

12 No Angel (2023)

Available To Stream On Amazon Prime Video With Viaplay Add-On

No Angel, originally titled Ingen Ängel in Swedish, is an unconventional slasher at the intersection of dark comedy and horror. Angelina, a 17-year-old popular girl with straight As, lives a seemingly idyllic life, but she harbors a secret. A desire to kill has grown stronger since childhood, and she may finally be at her breaking point.

Rather than hiding the killer's identity, No Angel centers the miniseries on her. Angie fills the series with brutally violent fantasies and unreliable narration. The story moves briskly, and the vivid colors provide a nice contrast for the messy kills. With 4 episodes lasting 17–20 minutes each, it can be broken up across multiple days when you're short on time or bingewatched with enjoyment.

11 American Horror Story: 1984 (2019)

Available To Stream On Hulu & Disney+

Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story can often feel like a long-winded soap opera, but 1984 is an entertaining, campy homage to 70s and 80s slasher movies like Friday the 13th and Halloween. 14 years after the mass murder at Camp Redwood, five friends escape Los Angeles to become counselors, but they discover the killer might be back.

AHS 1984 is packed with nonstop twists and turns, many of which are genuinely surprising. With just nine episodes, it's the shortest by episode count and maintains tight pacing that never loses momentum. Actors like John Carroll Lynch and Billie Lourd deliver powerhouse performances. That said, I feel compelled to say it’s tasteless to include real serial killer Richard Ramirez as a fictionalized character.

10 I Know What You Did Last Summer (2021)

Available To Stream On Amazon Prime Video

The TV show I Know What You Did Last Summer got heat because it’s different from the movie. However, the show deserves more appreciation. Like the movie, the story follows a group of teens who get stalked by a bloodthirsty killer a year after they cover up a fatal car accident. However, the show explores the characters in more depth and adds darker elements, like where they dispose of the body.

Prime Video’s I Know What You Did Last Summer has twice as many murders as the movie, ranging from ordinary methods like decapitation to unique methods like drowning by slushie. The show keeps audiences guessing about the killer’s identity until the end. Plus, Madison Iseman gives a powerhouse performance as Allison and Lennon.

9 Dead Of Summer (2016)

Available To Purchase On Fandango At Home, Apple TV, & Amazon

Freeform’s Dead of Summer is a teen supernatural slasher show inspired by 80s movies. Set in the Midwest in 1989, teen camp counselors at Camp Stillwater must try to survive when a dark force awakens and begins killing them one by one. Conceived as an anthology featuring different teens at a summer camp, the single season is self-contained and ends without a cliffhanger.

Once Upon a Time creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and writer Ian B. Goldberg teamed up on Dead of Summer, which is entertaining and spooky but not scary. The show nods to slasher tropes and traditional kills, and it leans into camp. Great acting from cast like Elizabeth Mitchell and Elizabeth Lail elevates the show, which gets better with each episode.

8 Scream: The TV Series (2015-2019)

Available To Stream For Free On Tubi

The first two seasons center on Emma Duval and her friends as a masked killer goes on a rampage in Lakewood. The third shifts to teen football star Deion Elliot and his friends in Atlanta. If only Scream seasons 1 and 2 are considered, it would rank higher. The characters are fantastic, and the plot twists and reveals feel very traditional Scream. What’s more, the kills are creative and extremely gory.

Scream season three has great actors and ideas, but a shoddy story and flat characters. Its shift also leaves major questions from the earlier story unanswered. Still, the return to the traditional Ghostface mask and voice was welcome, and the death count increased. The whole show is ultimately worth watching for slasher lovers.

7 Scream Queens (2015-2016)

Available To Stream Free On YouTube With Ads & Stream With Subscription On Hulu, Disney+, Prime Video

Scream Queens is a fantastic slasher-comedy series that got canceled after two seasons, but its brief run doesn’t change how entertaining it is. In the TV show, the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority sisters, led by snobby rich girl Chanel Oberlin, get targeted by a serial killer dressed up as the Red Devil mascot, who’s seeking revenge for a tragedy the KKT sorority covered up.

The laughably over-the-top characters satirize the “mean girl” archetype in the slasher genre. Even the idea of Chanel forcing her minions to go by Chanel #2-5. The cast of Scream Queens is absolutely stacked, with fantastic performances from the multiple Chanel actors Emma Roberts, Abigail Breslin, and Billie Lourd. What’s more, the campiness and absurd humor pair with unique kills, balancing the two genres well.

6 Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin (2022-2024)

Available To Stream On HBO Max

When Pretty Little Liars released its newest show in 2022, it brought a new cast of Liars and shifted from mystery to horror slasher. Set in the fictional Pennsylvania town of Milwood twenty years after a devastating suicide at a Y2K party, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin centers on a group of teenagers who get tormented by a masked murderer.

Though nothing like the original, Original Sin was an entertaining show inspired by horror classics like Scream and Halloween. As a slasher fan, I enjoyed spotting the homages. The kills were inconsistent, with the show sometimes lulling into teen-drama territory, but they were gnarly when they happened. Ultimately, it’s a fun watch, as long as viewers keep their expectations tempered.

5 Harper’s Island (2009)

Available To Rent/Purchase On Amazon, Fandango At Home, & Apple TV

The cult-classic 2009 slasher-mystery show Harper’s Island was intended to be a season-to-season horror anthology before that concept became mainstream. The single season that aired follows Abby, a young woman who returns to her hometown for the wedding of a friend, Henry Dunn, seven years after her mother was murdered in a disturbing massacre. As the guests gather, they are murdered one by one.

Although the Thursday release slot and limited marketing doomed the show, Harper’s Island is a slasher done right. It’s much more thrilling and suspenseful than horror anthologies like AHS. The 25-character ensemble allows for major, gory kills every week. Plus, audiences can solve an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit alongside the characters.

4 Slasher (2016-2023)

Slasher Seasons 1 To 3 Streaming On Netflix & Slasher Seasons 4 & 5 Streaming On Shudder & AMC+

As of the time of writing, Canadian series Slasher is the only anthology horror show firmly in slasher territory to last beyond season one, despite switching streamers twice. AHS has only a few seasons in the subgenre. Each follows a masked killer with an unknown motive, picking off victims in a whodunnit mystery.

As of the time of writing, Canadian series Slasher is the only anthology horror show firmly in slasher territory to last beyond season one, despite switching streamers twice. AHS has only a few seasons in the subgenre. Each follows a masked killer with an unknown motive, picking off victims in a whodunnit mystery.

The first season of Slasher is the weakest, but none of them are actually boring or so bad that they’re unwatchable. My personal ranking from worst to best is 1, 4, 2, 5, 3. Many of the same actors return each season, giving them a throughline. They have interesting killers and solid reveals, even with plot holes. Additionally, he kills are really entertaining, and the gore is impressive.