Halloween is creeping closer every day, and the Watch With Us team is full of spooky anticipation waiting for the ghosts and ghouls to come out to play.
If you can’t wait for the horrors to begin, you may be wondering which of Netflix’s many horror offerings is worth your time.
We’re here to suggest True Haunting, an innovative new docuseries that’s giving us goosebumps this month.
If you love true crime but yearn for the high production value of a top-notch horror film, you have to check out this new series — find out why right now.
It Was Created by the Producer of ‘Saw’ and ‘The Conjuring’
True Haunting was executive produced by horror expert James Wan, the filmmaker behind the Saw and Insidious franchises who created the Conjuring universe. Wan’s film and TV production company, Atomic Monster, has spread its tentacles pretty widely throughout the genre in the past few years with great success, putting its stamp on everything from global juggernaut horror films like M3GAN to the critically acclaimed (but cancelled-too-soon) show Archive 81.
With Wan’s signature style — cinematic scares that are equally emotional and eerie — True Haunting balances psychological tension with supernatural spectacle. His creative influence is clear in the show’s slick visuals, haunting sound design and deliberate pacing, all of which lend it the feel of a feature film rather than a typical docuseries. Safe to say, if Wan and the Atomic Monster team put their stamp on something, it has legitimate horror bona fides and should be taken very seriously.
‘True Haunting’ Combines High-Budget Cinema with Documentary Techniques
Speaking of taking things seriously, True Haunting might be the most ambitious horror docuseries we’ve ever seen. The five-episode show takes two true stories, told straight from eyewitness interviews, and produces full, high-budget reenactments.
Many docuseries use reenactments, but usually only as a last resort when the original footage can’t be found. True Haunting commits to making them cinematic, leaning into the actors’ performances, pairing them with voiceovers and chilling archival materials that blur the line between fiction and fact. The lighting, score and production design are on par with major studio horror films, making each scene feel immersive and horrifyingly believable.
There’s No Better Way to Make the Paranormal Feel Real
A bloody bathtub in True Haunting Netflix
The five episodes of True Haunting tell two different tales — “Eerie Hall,” which focuses on a group of college students who move into a possibly haunted building, and “This House Murdered Me,” the story of a family whose house seems to be trying to kill them.
The reenactments are genuinely terrifying, full of jump scares and deeply unsettling special effects. But what might be scariest of all are the interviews with the people who had these experiences. Whether they literally encountered ghosts or not, these people are haunted — terrified within an inch of their sanity — and seeing these powerful reenactments allows the viewer to understand how they got to this point.
As the stories unfold, viewers can’t help but question their own beliefs about the supernatural. The fear lingers long after the credits roll, not because of monsters or gore, but because True Haunting makes the unknown feel unnervingly possible. It might not make you believe in ghosts, but it will make you believe in fear itself — and if that’s what it takes to get you in the Halloween spirit, then get ready to be spooked.
