Here's why cult slasher series The Haunting Of Hill House proved TV horror could outshine its big screen cousins too.
Just barely missing out on this trend was CBS' Harper's Island, which debuted in 2009. This Agatha Christie inspired slasher series is set on the titular remote island, where years before a brutal killer murdered several people before - supposedly - being killed himself. Sometime later family and friends set out to the island for a wedding, only for the murders to start up again. Harper's Island was an ensemble affair that was designed as a one-season story, meaning the showrunners were free to kill off major characters in creatively gruesome ways.
Harper's Island pulled in mostly good reviews and debuted to over ten million viewers. Sadly, those ratings quickly dipped to less than five once it was moved from its original timeslot, and it was cancelled shortly after its finale aired. Of course, the finale also wrapped up the story, revealing some shocking twists but ending with the death of the killers.
Had Harper's Island been a success, the original plan for the show was to follow an anthology format. This means season 2 would have introduced a new story and set of characters, and in a retrospective chat with EW in 2017, the show's creator Ari Schlossberg laid out a concept for Harper's Safari, where some college students would have gone on safari, only to meet gruesome demises. There was also talk of a new season set on a space station, which brings up all sorts of intriguing possibilities.
Unfortunately, Harper's Island was just a little ahead of its time when it came to anthology horror on television. Just a couple of years after it aired, Ryan Murphy came along with Channel Zero also followed the same format. It would be great to see a new incarnation of Harper's Island, but while the original series has a cult following now, it might be hard to sell the anthology concept over a decade after it originally ended.