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If horror films have taught me anything, it's that nothing good ever comes out of the fog, but the haze-filled thriller Below has definitely earned record ratings and enthusiastic audiences for Netflix—it's the top debut for a Canadian show in the streamer's history, as it happens. In its wake, consider these 10 other series that take you to isolated and evocative landscapes filled with horrors both human and monstrous.
Midnight Mass (2021)
Claustrophobic, mysterious, and perpetually misty (seriously, you can't see shit in any of these towns), Midnight Mass is very much about the monsters within being no less frightening than those without. It may or may not be the best of Mike Flanagan's Netflix work, but it's certainly the most emotionally devastating. Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) returns to the tiny, isolated community of Crockett Island, his arrival coinciding with that of Catholic priest Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater). Riley is wrestling with his justifiable guilt over a drunk-driving death for which he was responsible, while the charismatic priest is reviving the town's once-flagging religious fervor while exacerbating local tensions. The brewing conflict, involving the limits of both faith and guilt, is fascinating, while the inseparably horrific elements are terrifying. Stream Midnight Mass on Netflix.
Katla (2021)
Running to the darker end of the spectrum, the often devastating Katla moves slowly until it doesn't, deliberately picking up speed as it builds to an emotional climax. Set in Iceland, the show takes place one year following the eruption of the real-life Katla volcano, which buries the nearby town of Vik in choking ash. The few people who've elected to remain are surprised, to say the least, when soot-covered figures from the past start arriving, including the dead son of the volcanologist studying the meteorite in the nearby glacier. Stream Katla on Netflix.
The Terror (2018 – )
Each season of The Terror is distinct, but all converge on the idea that real life is far, far more horrifying than the supernatural stuff going on in the background. Season one, adapted from the Dan Simmons novel, is our focus here, involving as it does the true story of two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, searching for the Northwest Passage before becoming trapped in a field of ice. Starvation, madness, and monsters ensue. While set in the 1840s (and in an ice field), the vibe isn't wildly dissimilar to Below. Stream The Terror on AMC+ and Shudder.
The Third Day (2020)
This weird, ambitious slice of folk horror finds Jude Law's Sam arriving on Osea Island while grieving his murdered son and trying to save his failing business. After he intervenes when he sees a young woman attempting to hang herself, Sam is caught up in some wildly atmospheric creepiness around the town. Later, Naomie Harris' Helen arrives on the island with her daughters only to discover that everything's gone to hell, and that the causeway that connects the island to the mainland is gone. In between the two halves of the miniseries, the creators produced an immersive 12-hour, single-camera livestream capturing a day in the life of the island, a wild bit of innovation. Admittedly, it's all a bit more vibes than plot, but the vibes are genuinely disturbing. Stream The Third Day on HBO Max.
True Detective: Night Country (2024)
One of the better creepy-stuff-in-an-isolated location narratives of recent years, moving away from the schvitzy bro energy of earlier seasons in favor of a darker (literally) and frostier mystery involving missing scientists at a research station near a tiny and necessarily remote Alaskan town, where the dark and the cold are practically characters themselves. The resulting case ties together veteran Chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), two women with complicated pasts and screwed-up present family lives. Stream True Detective: Night Country on HBO Max.
Gyeongseong Creature (2023 – )
Set in 1945 Gyeongseong (modern-day Seoul), and during the Japanese occupation of Korea, this series finds the title's monster arising out of human experimentation conducted in secret by the Japanese army. The scars of occupation have been justifiably fertile ground for storytelling in the last few years (see also Apple’s Pachinko), and Gyeongseong adds science fiction to that mix. The second season moves the action to the present day, with a third season renewal looking likely. If Below's monster is a primary draw, South Korean import Gyeongseong is about as good a follow-up as you're likely to find. Stream Gyeongseong Creature on Netflix.
Curon (2020)
Set near the real-life Lago di Resia in northern Italy, this show was inspired by the lake's singular view: the bell tower of a 14th century chapel rising above the water, the only visible remains of a village submerged by a dam in the 1950s. That eerie setting is home to Anna Raina (Valeria Bilello); it was, anyway, until she fled while pregnant with her twin daughters following her mother's tragic and mysterious death. The twins are now teenagers, and the three of them have returned—except nobody seems to want them around. They come to learn that Anna's been having dreams about her mother's death in which she's the killer, and then she herself disappears. It all ties back to that lake and the creepy bell tower—more about family mystery and vaguely supernatural menace than monsters, but the evocative setting ties this and Below together. Stream Curon on Netflix.
Widow's Bay (2026 – )
Another recent addition to the atlas of regrettable vacation destinations is Widow's Bay, an isolated New England island trying to shrug off its literally cursed reputation in favor of becoming a tourist destination à la Martha's Vineyard—but, alas, the timing isn't great. Cozy and idyllic on the surface, Widow's Bay appears to be "waking up," according to a few of the more tuned-in locals. Mayor Tom Loftus (Matthew Rhys), a relative newcomer, is having none of it—at least until a killer clown and waterlogged lady come for him, convincing him to join forces with local eccentric Wyck (Stephen Root) who seems to be on to something with his crackpot theories. The show is frequently funny, but also legitimately scary, with an everything-and-the-kitchen sink approach to the horror genre. Stream Widow's Bay on Apple TV.
The Rig (2023 – 2025)
As we in the real world well know, monsters can be tiny at least as easily as they can be large. This import finds us on a Scottish oil rig (obvi) in the North Sea, abruptly cut off by a mysterious fog (never a good thing) just as the facility is beginning to experience catastrophic system and structural failures. The mysterious haze is more than just a weather phenomenon, though, as there seems to be a microorganism carried within it that causes dramatic behavioral changes, and that may have a relationship to every mass extinction event in Earth's history. But hey—anything to push down the price of oil, amirite? Stream The Rig on Prime Video.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023 – )
The tone is wildly different, but so many of the shows here are included on the basis of their claustrophobic, mist-shrouded settings and similarly hazy human motivations, so it's only fair to give you some actual monsters, and no show has more creatures than this Godzilla spin-off. Monarch does a surprisingly effective job of telling its own story within the universe of all those American Godzilla movies of the past decade or so, bringing the narrative back down to Earth while building out an entire monster-verse mythology in the process. Anna Sawai stars as a young teacher searching for her father, missing since Godzilla's attack on San Francisco (depicted in the 2014 film), and finds herself drawn into the past and present of a secret government agency. Wyatt and Kurt Russell play the past and present incarnations of the Army colonel who helped set the whole thing in motion. Kong and Godzilla make appearances alongside the whole Toho monster stable. Stream Monarch on Apple TV.
from Lifehacker https://ift.tt/bQ8WxGc
