Filled with twists, turns, and terror, horror series can be quite the thrilling ride. For some shows, however, the greatest mystery of all is how they got canceled.
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00:00Filled with twists, turns, and terror, horror series can be quite the thrilling ride.
00:04For some shows, however, the greatest mystery of all is how they got cancelled.
00:09Bruce Campbell's horror movie hero, Ash Williams, has been one of the most beloved
00:13figures in the genre since his 1981 debut in The Evil Dead.
00:17Campbell reprised his iconic role in the Starz continuation series, Ash vs. Evil Dead, reuniting
00:21with filmmakers Sam and Ivan Ramey to bring the property to television.
00:25The series followed an older Ash who was dragged back into the world of monster slaying as
00:28evil forces seek to unleash literal hell on Earth.
00:31Armed with his shotgun, his chainsaw hand, and his usual wisecracks, it falls upon Ash
00:36to save the day.
00:37Premiering on Halloween 2015, Ash vs. Evil Dead ran for three seasons on Starz, before
00:42being cancelled with the conclusion of its final season in April 2018.
00:45Though the show struggled to find an audience with its linear broadcast on Starz, it performed
00:49well after being licensed to stream on Netflix.
00:57Several years after its cancellation, Campbell opened up about the circumstances regarding
01:00the end of Ash vs. Evil Dead.
01:02Speaking with Collider, Campbell blamed the lower viewership on the obscurity of Starz
01:06as a platform overall, noting that the show's popularity on Netflix came too late to save
01:10it.
01:11On paper, the Hulu original series, Castle Rock, seems like a premise for a surefire
01:16horror hit.
01:17The show takes place in the eponymous Maine small town.
01:20Populated by characters and themes from classic Stephen King stories, each season focuses
01:24on different plot elements, providing a modern twist on King's tales and remixing them with
01:28other stories.
01:29However, Castle Rock only lasted two seasons.
01:32This show was officially cancelled by Hulu at the end of 2020, 11 months after its final
01:36season concluded.
01:37Castle Rock was produced by Warner Bros. Television and Bad Robot Productions as part of the latter's
01:41development deal with Warner Bros.
01:43That deal ended in 2018, the same year that Castle Rock premiered on Hulu.
01:47Around this time, Warner Bros. was also beginning plans for its own premium streaming service,
01:52which would eventually launch in 2020 as HBO Max.
01:55With the partnership fulfilled and Warner looking to pivot to providing content for
01:58HBO Max rather than its competitors, Castle Rock was quietly cancelled.
02:03Filmmaker Mike Flanagan has made a growing home for his television horror projects at
02:06Netflix, including the well-received The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass.
02:11In 2022, The Midnight Club, based on the literary works of Christopher Pike, was set to continue
02:16Flanagan's winning streak on the platform.
02:18The show follows a group of terminally ill patients at a hospice facility who tell each
02:21other scary stories each night.
02:23As this nocturnal tradition progresses, the patients proceed to experience frightening
02:27supernatural events in the real world.
02:29Unlike Flanagan's single-season projects with Netflix, The Midnight Club was intended
02:33to run for two seasons to complete its story.
02:35However, Netflix cancelled the series three months after its premiere, leaving its season
02:39finalities unresolved.
02:41Speaking with Deadline following the cancellation announcement, Flanagan attributed changing
02:45internal priorities at Netflix for the show's premature end.
02:48There has also been speculation that the streamer decided to cancel the show after
02:51Flanagan signed a multi-year development deal with Prime Video, though he denied that that
02:55was the reason.
02:57After German filmmakers Jantje Fries and Baran Boadar's success with their Netflix original
03:01series Dark, the creative team signed a development deal with the streaming platform.
03:05The first project as part of this deal was 1899, which premiered on Netflix in November
03:092022.
03:10The show follows the crew and passengers of an ocean liner traveling to America from Europe
03:13in 1899.
03:15After the ship encounters an abandoned vessel during its voyage, sinister occurrences take
03:18place on board as the journey continues.
03:21Despite positive reviews and the creators' multi-year deal with Netflix, 1899 was cancelled
03:26in January 2023.
03:27Though the series posted strong viewership in its first three weeks of release, Netflix
03:31claimed that less than 50% of households that began streaming 1899 actually finished the
03:36eight-episode season.
03:37Unfortunately for the series, these undesirable statistics are the reason the company cited
03:42for the show's cancellation.
03:43In a written statement posted to Instagram, Boadar noted that he and Fries planned at
03:47least two additional seasons before 1899 was ended due to Netflix's metric-driven renewal
03:51strategy.
03:52The French Netflix series Marianne serves as sort of a nightmarish twist on the 2006
04:04movie Stranger Than Fiction.
04:05The show follows novelist Emma Larse Simone, who discovers that characters from her books
04:09are roaming the real world.
04:10Among these characters is Marianne, a fearsome witch who begins to target Emma's family and
04:14friends as part of a bloody vendetta.
04:16As Emma is stalked by her terrifying creations, she must contend with alternate realities
04:20in what she has unleashed on the world.
04:22Upon its premiere in September 2019, Marianne performed well in international territories,
04:27with creator Samuel Bowden planning a second season.
04:29However, as with 1899, Netflix claimed the French series suffered from a low completion
04:34rate among its viewership.
04:36Specifically, Netflix claimed that, in the show's native France, viewers were not finishing
04:40the series enough to justify a second season.
04:42Despite glowing critical reviews worldwide and a cliffhanger ending, Marianne was officially
04:46cancelled in January 2020.
04:49While Marvel Television had certainly flirted with the horror genre before, they have fully
04:53embraced it with Hellstrop.
04:54Streaming on Hulu in 2020, the series is based on hellish Marvel superheroes Damon and Anna
04:59Hellstrom, reimagined as the children of a satanic serial killer.
05:02Because of their parents' cultist activities, Damon and Anna develop paranormal powers that
05:06they use to root out evil.
05:08However, Damon is secretly possessed by a demon and targeted by a cult that seeks to
05:12unleash it on the world.
05:14While Hellstrom was in the midst of principal photography in December 2019, Marvel Television
05:18was disbanded by its new parent company, Marvel Studios.
05:21Previously, Marvel Television had been part of a separate parent company, Marvel Entertainment,
05:25and produced Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Marvel's Netflix original programming.
05:28After Marvel Studios absorbed Marvel Television in October 2019, it's had Jeph Loeb step down,
05:34while Marvel Studios planned its own television content.
05:36This corporate restructuring led Hellstrom to be released with little fanfare in October
05:402020, and quietly cancelled two months later.
05:46Capcom's Resident Evil franchise popularized the survival horror genre, and continues to
05:51be a major video game property nearly 30 years after its launch.
05:55Netflix put its own spin on the Resident Evil myth-dose with a live-action television series
05:58that premiered in July 2022.
06:00Taking place primarily across two time periods, one in 2022 and one in 2036, the show follows
06:06devious scientist Albert Wesker and his two children after the world is overrun by zombies.
06:10As the 2022 storyline reveals how the zombie apocalypse begins, the 2036 sequences depict
06:15the last bastion of humanity fighting for survival.
06:18In its first week on Netflix, Resident Evil actually posted impressive viewership numbers,
06:23briefly replacing the fourth season of Stranger Things as the platform's most-watched series.
06:27However, viewership plummeted in the face of negative word-of-mouth and poor critical
06:31reviews shortly thereafter.
06:33The following month, Netflix cancelled Resident Evil, leaving its story incomplete after a
06:37cliffhanger closed out its only season.
06:40Since both this series and the feature film Resident Evil Welcome to Raccoon City were
06:43largely failures, it might be a while before we see the franchise return to live-action.
06:49Matt Ruff's 2016 horror novel Lovecraft Country was adapted into a television series by Misha
06:53Green and premiered on HBO in 2020.
06:56This show follows young Korean War veteran Atticus Freeman as he searches America for
06:59his missing father under the shadow of Jim Crow.
07:02This cross-country trip veers sharply into the supernatural as a sinister cult takes
07:06interest in Atticus even after he returns home to Chicago.
07:09In addition to the widespread institutionalized racism and terrifying monsters summoned by
07:12the cult, horrors from the Korean War arrive in America searching for Atticus as well.
07:17While a second season, tentatively titled Lovecraft Country Supremacy, was planned,
07:21the series was cancelled by HBO in July 2021.
07:24At the time, HBO claimed the show's high production costs were not worth the viewership
07:27the series received, thus causing the network to cancel the series.
07:31However, James Andrew Miller's tell-all book Tinderbox, HBO's ruthless pursuit of new frontiers,
07:36claims the cancellation was motivated by negative workplace reports.
07:40Unnamed sources cited in the book accused Green of creating a toxic work environment,
07:44leading HBO to shut down the show.
07:45Though unconfirmed outside of Miller's book, the claims do put the production and premature
07:49end of Lovecraft Country in an uncomfortable light.
07:53The perennial gateway to the works of celebrated filmmaker David Lynch, Twin Peaks ran for
07:57two seasons on ABC from 1990 to 1991.
08:00After homecoming queen Laura Palmer is murdered in a small Pacific Northwestern town, FBI
08:04special agent Dale Cooper is assigned to investigate.
08:07What follows is an increasingly surreal exploration of the dark side of a small town, with many
08:12of the locals possessing their own sinister secrets.
08:15Cooper's visit takes a surreal turn when he learns a supernatural entity involved in Laura's
08:18death ties everything together in shocking ways.
08:21Despite being a surprise success in its first season, ratings plummeted halfway through
08:25the second.
08:26This decline was attributed to Lynch leaving early during production on the sophomore season,
08:29and a sudden change in time slot due to television coverage of the Gulf War.
08:33The creative shift and mid-season time change led ABC to cancel Twin Peaks months before
08:37the season finale aired.
08:38Frustrated by the experience, Lynch disowned the second season and concluded the story
08:43with a revival season 26 years later.
08:46The Archie Comics brand found new life on television, starting with the premiere of
08:49Riverdale on The CW in 2017.
08:52Netflix launched the horror-tinged sister series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina the
08:55following year, and found its own success in the eyes of critics and viewers.
08:58The show starred Kiernan Shipka as teenage witch Sabrina Spellman, who contends with
09:02the forces of hell in her own demonic parentage.
09:13The series ran for two seasons, divided across four blocks of episodes, and received a surprise
09:17holiday special in 2018.
09:19Though a fifth block of episodes was planned by series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa,
09:23Netflix canceled the series between its third and fourth blocks in July 2020.
09:27Sabrina, as well as Glow and I Am Not Okay With This, was part of a wave of canceled
09:31Netflix shows that were canceled that year despite receiving tentative renewals.
09:35As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down entertainment productions worldwide, Netflix decided to
09:40cancel several of its shows to cut costs in the face of prolonged uncertainty.
09:44Shipka's Sabrina later appeared on Riverdale, while Aguirre-Sacasa turned his story ideas
09:48for unrealized Chilling Adventures episodes into a comic book.