Published Jul 5, 2026, 11:54 AM EDT
Liam Gaughan is a film and TV writer at Collider. He has been writing film reviews and news coverage for ten years. Between relentlessly adding new titles to his watchlist and attending as many screenings as he can, Liam is always watching new movies and television shows.
In addition to reviewing, writing, and commentating on both new and old releases, Liam has interviewed talent such as Mark Wahlberg, Jesse Plemons, Sam Mendes, Billy Eichner, Dylan O’Brien, Luke Wilson, and B.J. Novak. Liam aims to get his spec scripts produced and currently writes short films and stage plays. He lives in Allentown, PA.
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Apple TV has proven itself to be the go-to streaming service for science fiction, but it hasn’t quite topped Netflix when it comes to horror. Horror cinema is experiencing a renaissance right now thanks to the success of several independent productions, but it’s been a harder genre to crack on the small screen; sustaining a consistent level of suspense is much more challenging if there is an established premise for a series where the audience knows where the story will be going. **Apple TV made the right decision to call up a horror master **when the service debuted Servant, a supernatural horror show that was created and partially directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Although Shyamalan is a polarizing filmmaker who went through a period of unpopularity, he started a comeback in the mid-2010s by returning to his roots to make low-budget, high-concept horror films. *Servant *feels like it is cut from the same cloth, and it’s one of the few horror television shows that have taken advantage of the half-hour format.
*Servant *is set in Philadelphia and follows the celebrity chef Sean Turner (Toby Kebbell) and his television news reporter wife Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) after they tragically lose their son, Jericho, after only thirteen weeks. Although Dorothy’s alcoholic brother, Julian Pearce (Rupert Grint), stays with the couple to help them work through their grief, Sean hires the young nanny Leanne Grayson (Nell Tiger Free) to care for a lifelike doll made to resemble Jericho. Dorothy has been so consumed with sadness that she requires this unusual coping method to avoid having a breakdown. ***Servant *****twists its unusual premise into weirder directions as the series continues, as Jericho’s potential revitalization is linked to the presence of a godless cult and an ancient curse. *Servant *is among the best-crafted works of horror ever made during the streaming era. Stephen King said that the show was “extremely creepy and totally involving,” and Guillermo del Toro **called it “a beautifully crafted, elegant show” that was “surreal, iconoclastic and insidiously creepy in many small ways.”
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
As is the case with many of Shyamalan’s films, ***Servant *****understands the importance of creating a compelling version of reality **that allows the audience to buy into the character drama before they begin accepting the folk horror elements. Even when removed from the cults and witchcraft, *Servant *sets up a compelling dynamic between its characters; Dorothy has had the confidence she needs for her job shattered, Sean doesn’t know how much he should indulge his wife’s unusual healing techniques, Julian wants to help without bringing up his own issues, and Leanne has been inserted into a caustic family dynamic that she does show some interested in aiding. Even though there’s a lot of horror projects that boil down to being about grief, *Servant *has an interesting approach because it shows how tragedies can linger days, weeks, and years after their initial occurrence.
There are plenty of other ghosts outside the walls of Hill House.
While it contains some truly haunting imagery, ***Servant ***is also a very dark comedy that benefits from the fact that all of the characters are inherently selfish and end up facing consequences for their actions. There’s a point within every horror project when watching innocent people get terrorized can become uncomfortable, but it’s less of an issue in *Servant *because the characters are often to blame for their own misfortunes. Shyamalan has always had a talent for exploring familial intrigue, and *Servant *is a surprisingly honest exploration of the different roles that relatives play in each other’s lives when they grow older. It’s also a series that constantly shifts the power dynamic so that no character has too much control or self-awareness; even if the Turners have the benefit of wealth and Julian has the freedom of not being directly involved in the employment arrangement, Leanne still has possession of the concept of Jericho’s soul, which allows her to retain her influence.
Although the premise for *Servant *could have easily begun to fall apart after only a short period of time,** the show continues to complicate its mythology in later seasons** and further suggests that Dorothy has distanced herself from ever being the same person that she was prior to Jericho’s death. The fact that episodes are around 30 minutes in length is critical to the pacing, as it’s guaranteed that every single installment will include a few great scares with not a lot of filler. The fact that the Turners are trying to maintain some semblance of the status quo also gives *Servant *more believability, as it does not have to keep justifying why this event wouldn’t spark any outside interest.
*Servant *is one of the most underrated shows of the past decade because it aired before Apple TV had gained a reputation for being a prestige service, as most of its hits at the time were those that had famous names attached. That Shyamalan’s work has been reassessed after making three hit films since Servant’s debut also changes its standing, as more fans might be willing to watch the series in light of its creator’s consistency. *Servant *is a total blast that shows more interest in amping up its scares than stringing along its audience with a series of mystery boxes, and it has continued to age well as an underrated gem within Apple TV’s growing library of high-quality genre content. And with King and del Toro recommending the series, can you really go wrong as a horror lover?
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