90s Horror TV Shows With Awful Reviews That Are Actually Worth Watching

While "network TV series based on a tabletop RPG" may sound like the most '90s-y description for a TV show ever, Fox's "Kindred: The Embraced" actually broke new ground in 1996 as the first mainstream, adult-oriented screen adaptation of a roleplaying game. Along with CBS and USA Network's "Forever Knight," it also pioneered the concept of urban, gritty, contemporary-set vampire television, preceding iconic shows like Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "True Blood," and "The Vampire Diaries." But even all that freshness wasn't enough to keep "Kindred" from being largely dismissed by critics. It's a shame, because it was truly a show that deserved a better shake — both from reviewers and from audiences, whose disinterest led to a premature cancellation after a single, eight-episode season. 

Created by John Leekley and Mark Rein-Hagen, "Kindred" follows the mythology and dynamics of Rein-Hagen's 1991 game "Vampire: The Masquerade" pretty closely, using a straightforward police procedural hook as the mere entry point into a sprawling world of vampire clans perpetually on the brink of conflict. Mark Frankel stars as Julian Luna, a kind of vampire Don Corleone, whose apparent life as a mobster is actually a cover for his role as the Prince of the Kindred, an aggregation of five rival San Francisco clans, which Julian is tasked with overseeing and keeping in balance. Although the cop show elements centered around Detective Frank Kohanek (C. Thomas Howell) are mostly boilerplate, everything involving the vampires themselves is deeply engrossing, chilling, and fun.

Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of "The Shining," as he has reiterated several times throughout the years. To give one example, he told Playboy Magazine in 1983 that "for all its virtuoso effects, [the film] never gets you by the throat and hangs on the way real horror should" (via The Dissolve). In fact, Kubrick's film bugged King so much that, in 1997, he went ahead and developed his own adaptation of "The Shining," in the form of a three-episode ABC miniseries. In sharp contrast to the hands-off approach he took to the original adaptation of "It," King intended his "The Shining" as a book-faithful corrective to Kubrick's. Critics, in turn, widely criticized the series as a less memorable version of the story.

To be fair, the King-penned, Mick Garris-directed series is not, indeed, an avant-garde masterpiece on par with the 1980 film. But it does deserve a better reputation than it's got. Although the visual effects are about as dated as you'd expect of a 1997 network TV show, ABC's "The Shining" is genuinely engaging and spine-tingling as a more straightforward and character-driven meditation on the emotional troubles of a nuclear family isolated to the point of madness. Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay's performances alone are worth watching for the fascinating way they re-contextualize the characters of Jack and Wendy Torrance, and the same goes for many of King's and Garris' choices, which approach the novel primarily on its own terms as a narrative piece.

Although bearing little relation to the "Poltergeist" film franchise, aside from the title and the general concept of centering around paranormal phenomena, "Poltergeist: The Legacy" scratches a similar itch to the notorious 1980s trilogy about a family pestered by ghosts. With a case-of-the-week structure that doesn't take away from its intensity and urgency one bit, the Richard Barton Lewis-created series — which aired for three seasons on Showtime before hopping on over to Sci-Fi Channel for a fourth and final outing — is among the most consistently frightening shows of the '90s.

Despite that quality and the audience success that reflected it, however, "Poltergeist: The Legacy" was shunned by critics, who didn't view its repurposing of "Poltergeist" into a procedural format too favorably. Even so, the show is entirely satisfying and compelling if you can get past the fact that it's essentially "Poltergeist" in name and spirit (no pun intended) only. The subtitle refers to the Legacy, a secret society with chapters all around the world, in which paranormal specialists are tasked with keeping tabs on the relationship between our world and the beyond, and routinely step in to help when humans are threatened by ghostly forces. "Legacy" specifically follows the San Francisco chapter, which disguises itself as an archaeological foundation; on each episode, its diverse team of experts led by Dr. Derek Rayne (Derek de Lint) works together to solve new mysteries, save civilians, and help the uninformed navigate the tricky and dangerous workings of the supernatural world.

Speaking of Stephen King adaptations, ABC also ventured into that veritable horror subgenre a couple of years before "The Langoliers," with a two-part audiovisual rendering of the 1987 sci-fi novel "The Tommyknockers." With a script by Lawrence D. Cohen and direction by John Power, the 1993 "Tommyknockers" miniseries was absolutely slaughtered by critics, who took issue with everything from the writing to the visual effects to the source material itself. Even King, ever the mensch when it comes to adaptations of his work, has made rare negative remarks on "The Tommyknockers" — both the TV production and, in a 2014 Rolling Stone interview, his own novel, which he deemed "an awful book."

Although "The Tommyknockers" is, indeed, not one of the out-and-out best King-based TV shows, it's still very much worth the time of King completists and sci-fi horror aficionados alike. The structure is coolly effective: The first half shows the residents of Haven, Maine being slowly affected by an inexplicable alien artifact being dug up from the ground by Bobbi Anderson (Marg Helgenberger) and Jim "Gard" Gardner (Jimmy Smits), which turns regular citizens into genius inventors overnight. Then, the second half delves into the precise nature of the force that's possessing the town, revealing its extraterrestrial origins and the imminent existential threat it poses to the whole of Haven. Low-budget effects notwithstanding, it's the perfect two-act setup for a classic King tale of quiet small town tranquility being disrupted by horrors beyond anyone's understanding.

Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson's Swamp Thing has always been unique among the pantheon of iconic superheroes for his proximity to the horror genre; the best Swamp Thing stories strike a tone incomparably perched between dread and comfort, counterintuitively twisting the nightmarish despondency of its premise into a foundation for unwavering moral righteousness. The two "Swamp Thing" films released in the 1980s, alas, did not quite capture that tonal singularity, instead opting for a goofier, broader approach.

Enter USA Network's "Swamp Thing," which endeavored to course-correct by giving the character a more serious, more thematically fleshed-out treatment. Developed by Joseph Stefano, famous for writing the screenplay for "Psycho" — yes, Alfred Hitchcock's original, controversial 1960 "Psycho" — and many episodes of "The Outer Limits," the 1990 series offered a similarly high-minded yet thrill-attentive outlook on the most tortured yet principled of DC Comics heroes. It wasn't enough to keep it from being ravaged by critics, mind you, but any Swamp Thing fans should find plenty to love in Stefano's vision.

Instead of big weekly fights and elaborate setpieces, the show explores the complex interplay between humanity and nature that takes place in the titular Louisiana swamp, showcasing Swamp Thing (aka Alec Holland) and his unusual moral code and stringent commitment to preserving life and combating those intent on destroying it for personal gain. Which isn't to say that there aren't also plenty of good scares and satisfying swamp action to go around; this time, though, they're balanced with genuine narrative interest.

Have you seen the "Nightmare on Elm Street" installment directed by "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" filmmaker Tobe Hooper? If not, don't fret, because a great number of horror aficionados aren't even aware that the legendary American filmmaker once had a dalliance with the Wes Craven-created franchise. But sure enough, the "Elm Street" spin-off anthology series "Freddy's Nightmares," which aired two seasons in syndication between 1988 and 1990, brought on Hooper as the director of its pilot episode.

That episode, incidentally, is among the few actually centered on Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). Although Englund appears in every episode, most installments feature Krueger only as an announcer, introducing myriad horror stories set amid the desolation of Springwood, Ohio. The stories incorporate a wide variety of supernatural elements, jumping freely from concept to concept with each new episode; some, like the Hooper-directed opener, are de-facto "Nightmare on Elm Street" sequels featuring Krueger as a primary villain.

None of the episodes are written or directed by Wes Craven himself, whose role on the show is limited to a "characters created by" credit. Perhaps in part due to that lack of auteur input, "Freddy's Nightmares" was very poorly received by critics. But as horror anthologies go, it's a very solid one, imbued with the same endearing corniness and disarming despondency that define the whole franchise. And Englund, who still has nightmares about the original film, is as in his element as ever — whether sinking his claws into one of the storylines or doing his best Cryptkeeper.