Netflix
Netflix’s new horror series, “The Haunting of Hill House,” is an instant hit with audiences, critics, and horror fans alike.
The show has a 91% critic score on review-aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, and a 93% audience score based on 785 user ratings. It’s one of Netflix’s best-reviewed shows of all time, and one of the best-reviewed shows of the year.
Even Stephen King, the master horror author of classic novels like “The Shining,” “It,” and “Carrie,” gave the show a rousing review, and called it “close to a work of genius” this week.
But to get a better sense of just how big of a hit it is, we turned to data-science company Parrot Analytics. In data provided to Business Insider, collected from October 12 to 18, Parrot found that “The Haunting of Hill House” was the third most in-demand horror show among audiences. That’s not bad, considering the show only debuted last Friday and the top two have been on the air for nearly a decade.
If “The Haunting of Hill House” can compete with the likes of “The Walking Dead” and “American Horror Story” after such a short amount of time, then its popularity is bound to only go up. There’s no word on a season two just yet, but judging by the response to the show, it wouldn’t be surprising if it happened. In the meantime, fans can look forward to director Mike Flanagan’s next project: a film adaptation of King’s “Doctor Sleep,” which is a sequel to “The Shining.”
To gague the popularity of a show, Parrot calculates the total audience demand for a title, which reflects “the desire, engagement, and viewership weighted by importance” (a stream or download is a higher expression of demand than a reaction on social media). Some of the shows listed aren’t on the air currently, but they are in-demand for audiences.
Below are the eight most popular horror shows right now, including “The Haunting of Hill House”:
8. “Castle Rock” (Hulu)
Average demand expressions: 13,954,114
Description: “A psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse, Castle Rock combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King’s literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half, IT and Needful Things, as well as novella The Body and numerous short stories such as Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption are either set there or contain references to Castle Rock. Castle Rock is an original suspense/thriller — a first-of-its-kind reimagining that explores the themes and worlds uniting the entire King canon, while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories.”
7. “Light as a Feather” (Hulu)
Average demand expressions: 14,240,632
Description: “An innocent game of “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board” goes wrong when the five teen girls who played start dying off in the exact way that was predicted, forcing the survivors to figure out why they’re being targeted – and whether the evil force hunting them down is one of their own.”
6. “The Purge” (USA)
Average demand expressions: 14,973,182
Description: “During a 12-hour period when all crime — including murder — is legal, a group of seemingly unrelated characters cross paths in a city in an altered America. While the clock winds down, some will fight, some will hide, others will embrace what it means to Purge to its fullest extent — whether for revenge, personal gain, protection, or unadulterated glee. As each character is forced to reckon with his or her past and plot how to better their futures, they soon discover how far they will go on Purge Night.”
5. “A Discovery of Witches” (Sky)
Average demand expressions: 15,434,859
Description: “‘A Discovery of Witches’ is a contemporary love story set against the backdrop of Oxford academic life, but in a world where a handful of witches, vampires and daemons live and work unseen amongst humans, hiding in plain sight. Teresa Palmer will star as brilliant academic and historian Diana Bishop, a reluctant witch denying her heritage. The discovery of a manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library throws her into the heart of a dangerous mystery – and into the path of enigmatic geneticist Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode), who we discover also has a dark family secret: he is a vampire.”
4. “Fear the Walking Dead” (AMC)
Average demand expressions: 18,333,872
Description: “The group will explore who they are now – as individuals and as part of the greater group – and how they will forge ahead. They will find themselves pitted against new adversaries – human, walker, and even nature itself. Theirs will be a journey wrought with danger, love, heartbreak, loss, and ultimately, hope.”
3. “The Haunting of Hill House” (Netflix)
Average demand expressions: 32,706,056
Description: “Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.”
2. “The Walking Dead” (AMC)
Average demand expressions: 59,293,666
Description: “Last season brought the culmination of “All Out War,” which pitted Rick Grimes and his group of survivors against the Saviors and their cunning leader, Negan. With Negan’s life in his hands, Rick had a character-defining choice in front of him. By making the unilateral decision to spare Negan, Rick upheld the values his late son, Carl, championed in order to build for the future, but created conflict within his group. Now, we see our survivors a year and a half after the end of the war, rebuilding civilization under Rick’s steadfast leadership. It is a time of relative peace among the communities as they work together, looking to the past to forge the future, but the world they knew is rapidly changing as man-made structures continue to degrade, and nature takes over, changing the landscape and creating new challenges for our survivors. As time passes, the communities confront unexpected obstacles, danger, and of course, walkers, but nothing quite prepares them for the formidable force they are about to encounter, which threatens the very idea of civilization that our survivors have worked so hard to build.”
1. “American Horror Story” (FX)
Average demand expressions: 79,994,247
Description: “‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ is the eighth installment of the award-winning anthology series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. After the nuclear apocalypse, the world’s chosen elite survive in secure Outposts created by the mysterious Cooperative. On the American West Coast, Ms. Wilhemina Venable (Sarah Paulson) and Ms. Miriam Mead (Kathy Bates) run Outpost Three with an iron fist. The unexpected arrival of Michael Langdon (Cody Fern), a Cooperative representative determined to save society with a secret paradise, throws their order into chaos. However, underneath the surface of humanity’s salvation lies a battlefield for the final conflict between good and evil.”
