11 Scariest Horror-Themed TV Shows To Binge-Watch This Halloween 2020

3. The X-Files

X-Files is undoubtedly more sci-fi than horror, but its popularity coincided with the era of twenty-four episode seasons and this meant they needed a lot of filler to pad out the main storyline. This led to a neat division between the X-Files episodes. The episodes that tell the wider story of extra-terrestrials and government conspiracies are the “mythos” episodes and the self-contained monster stories are dubbed “monster-of-the-week” episodes.

These monster-of-the-week episodes are not all good; the long run of the show inevitably means there’s some real stinkers, but some of them are utterly terrifying.

Some of the best episodes to begin with: Roadrunners, Humbug, Squeeze, Tooms, Die Hand Die Verlezt, Detour, The Post-Modern Prometheus.

However, Home is the most controversial episode; it received so many complaints from viewers that it was wasn’t re-aired for years. Its content - which tells the story of a reclusive family of maniacs, reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - is still shocking when considered in the wider context of the show.