5 Horror Series We Want to See on TV After 'Friday the 13th'

With the success of MTV’s risky Scream reboot, it looks like all sorts of horror movie killers are crawling out of their graves and onto your television screens. Next year, A&E will be resurrecting Satan’s spawn, Damien, for a new ongoing series based on The Omen. Meanwhile, The CW, which had been flirting with a Tales From the Darkside anthology series, instead is moving forward with a new take on Friday the 13th. The venerable horror franchise has come to television before in the late ‘80s, but that earlier version abandoned its hockey mask-wearing star attraction Jason Voorhees and instead followed the proprietors of an antiques store as they tried to find dangerous artifacts with otherworldly powers.

Overseen by Steve Mitchell and Craig Van Sickle, who created the popular ‘90s procedural, The Pretender, the new Friday the 13th will feature Jason doing what he does best: killing nubile teenagers who make the mistake of wandering into Camp Crystal Lake. Early reports suggest that the season’s main arc will involve a detective on the hunt for his long-lost brother, a search that eventually brings him into contact with Voorhees. There’s still good reason to be skeptical, but Scream proves that television can be a viable medium for vintage horror icons to wreak havoc. Here are five of our favorite freaky franchises from the ‘80s and ‘90s that have serious reboot potential.

Child’s Play
Psycho Killer: Chucky, an adorable red-haired doll who goes from kids’ plaything to kids’ boogeyman (boogeydoll?) when he’s possessed by the spirit of a vicious killer.  
Franchise History: The pint-sized psycho (memorably voiced by Brad Dourif) appeared in six movies between 1988 and 2013, but plans for another feature appear to have stalled out.

Why It Would Work on TV: In addition to seriously bloody deaths, the first movie also offered some trenchant satire about the kiddie toy industry, cleverly transforming a coveted doll into a killing machine. One could argue that the series got a little too broadly comic as it went along, culminating in Chucky becoming a plastic family man in Seed of Chucky. With marketing to young audiences more sinisterly intensive than ever, a Child’s Play series could return to the franchise’s roots, wickedly spoofing contemporary consumer culture as part of Chucky’s general wickedness. One request: you can change the time period and the human characters, but please, please, please make sure that Dourif’s sinister voice is still coming out of Chucky’s mouth.  

Hellraiser
Psycho Killer: Interdimensional soul-harvester, Pinhead… so named because he’s got sharp pins sticking out all over his head.  
Franchise History: Loosely adapted from a novella by British genre favorite, Clive Barker, 1987’s Hellraiser — in which Pinhead was merely a supporting character — spawned eight Pinhead-centric follow-ups. The last, Hellraiser: Revelations, went directly to DVD in 2011.

Why It Would Work on TV: Between last season’s Constantine and this season’s Lucifer (not to mention next year’s Damien), it’s clear that TV execs are interested in characters who have literally been to hell and back. And few cinematic killers cut as hellish a figure as Pinhead. A Hellraiser show could easily be made into an episodic affair, with each installment chronicling the travails of a lost soul who comes into possession of the puzzle box that grants Pinhead access to our world. An encounter with the demon could either result in their savior… or damnation.

An American Werewolf in London
Psycho Killer: David Kessler, an American abroad in jolly old England who gets in touch with his wolfish side after an attack by another lunar-activated lupine.
Franchise History: John Landis’s 1981 hit is a nostalgic favorite for anyone who caught it in theaters or on cable during that era. The belated 1997 sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, has been forgotten by almost everyone, and for good reason.

Why It Would Work on TV: Because you just know that the Brits would make a killer 7-episode limited series that’d become a cult favorite stateside for some lucky streaming service. (See also: Black Mirror on Netflix, Misfits on Hulu, and Catastrophe on Amazon.) Picture this: Misfits mastermind Howard Overman brings rising American star Nat Wolff across the pond, gets him bit, and then embeds him in a wolf pack that includes Rupert “Ron Weasley” Grint and a newly Downton-less Laura Carmichael. We’re already howling with delight.

The Craft
Psycho Killer: Nancy, a teenage witch who forgets Spider-Man’s famous lesson about great power requiring great responsibility.
Franchise History: There’s just the one movie, but Craft love looms large enough in the pop culture consciousness that Sony announced a film reboot earlier this year.

Why It Would Work on TV: And wouldn’t that big-screen reboot be the perfect jumping-off point for a series? Frankly, it’s surprising that The CW hasn’t already revived The Craft already, since it fits in perfectly with the “supernatural teen” thing they’ve got going on with The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. In its previous life as The WB, the network was home to not just one, but two witch-themed series: Charmed and Sabrina. A soapy high-school drama with witches would be guaranteed to cast a spell on its target demo.

Gremlins
Psycho Killer: They may start out as cute and furry Mogwai, but all it takes is one post-midnight snack to transform these critters into scaly, sadistic gremlins.  
Franchise History: Joe Dante directed the original 1984 box office smash and it’s less commercially successful (but critically adored) 1990 sequel.

Why It Would Work on TV: A feature film reboot is reportedly in the works, but producers might be wiser to explore small-screen options, allowing the town of Kingston Falls to potentially become the next Twin Peaks or Scream’s Lakewood. There are plenty of eccentrics present in the original film who aren’t given their full due once the Gremlins start running amok. Just think of the story potential in exploring how Ruby Deagle became the bitter old crone you root to see thrown out a window via a stair lift.