Five of the best modern horror series ranked (including Swarm)

3. Yellowjackets

I was a little late to the party with Yellowjackets. I heard great things, but by the time I subscribed to Showtime (simply to watch Yellowjackets and the other hot horror series at the time, Dexter: New Blood), the entire season was available to me. So I, of course binged it.

And let’s be honest here, Yellowjackets is EXTREMELY bingeable! It’s a horror series blessed with a very compelling, completely bonkers storyline and a uniformly good cast.

The first episode introduced us to the main characters as they were in 1996, a group of high-school girls who play for their school’s soccer team. And they are really good players, too, preparing to play in a national tournament in Seattle.

The series does a good job of giving us insight into each girl, so we can tell that Taissa is very competitive, team captain Jackie is super popular, but not really as into her cute boyfriend Jeff as we would think, that Jackie’s BFF Shauna is pretty shady, Misty is very off-kilter, and so on.

What really kicks the story into high gear is the team’s ill-fated trip to Seattle, during which their plane crashes in the wilderness. During the 19 months we are told they were stuck there, some very bad things happened – including cannibalism.

When we meet the adult versions of these girls, we can see how each has remained the same, and how they have changed. We also see how the traumatic events that happened when they were stranded in the middle of nowhere has affected each of them. And all of that is before we even fully know what exactly these events were.

Each episode left me wanting more, and I couldn’t be happier that the second season of Yellowjackets is finally here. I just renewed my lapsed Showtime subscription, and plan to watch the first couple of episodes this weekend. If it’s anywhere near as good as season one, I will be very happy!