10 Most Gruesome TV Shows Of All Time

The story goes that screenwriter Kevin Williamson locked himself away and knocked out a draft of the screenplay for Scream in a few days, re-igniting, re-inventing and subverting the horror genre as many others have in past decades.

His follow-up work, outside of the franchise, has been less than stellar. Cursed was appropriately named, suffering production issues and major cast changes, I Know What You Did Last Summer felt like a retread and his directorial debut, Teaching Mrs. Tingle, made absolutely no impression at all.

The only other real success Williamson saw was his work on Dawson's Creek, another venture that - like Scream - recalls with great nostalgia the teen pop culture wave of the 80s.

Eventually, he returned to horror, his first love, but only on a different medium. The Following debuted on Fox in 2013, with ex-FBI agent Kevin Bacon hunting down serial killer James Purefoy. Soon, it becomes apparent that Purefoy has built of a cult of like-minded killers surrounding him, carrying out brutal murders.

A lot of the deaths may be offscreen, but the resulting trail of corpses were on full display. It also deserves a bit of credit for creativity, with the murderers often dressing in costume and coming up with more diabolically cruel ways to kill.

Alas, network television didn't quite know how to carry a full series about a serial killer to term yet, and Fox yanked it after three seasons.