Ancient oral traditions have carried whispers of terror across generations in the form of stories designed to warn, to frighten, and to shield from hidden powers. In recent years, modern horror dramas have drawn heavily from these deep-rooted cultural narratives, breathing new life into timeless anxieties and making them resonate with modern audiences. Rather than relying solely on jump scares or gore, many of today’s most compelling horror shows use folklore as a structural foundation, embedding societal fears and mythic archetypes into their storytelling.

Shows like American Horror Story, The Witcher, and Midnight Mass incorporate local legends and folk beliefs to ground their supernatural elements in a sense of cultural truth. For example, the use of Slavic folklore in The Witcher, with its female demons and cursed revenants, adds layers of historical resonance that go beyond mere monster design. These creatures are not just scary because they look frightening; they are terrifying because they embody ancestral traumas—betrayal, loss, the consequences of breaking taboos. Similarly, The Haunting of Bly Manor draws on Victorian spiritualism and parish superstitions to explore themes of faith, guilt, and communal hysteria.

Folklore also allows horror series to tackle societal issues indirectly—many traditional tales were originally used to justify social norms through supernatural consequences. Modern shows adapt this function by using folklore to reflect 21st-century insecurities—global warming, digital loneliness, racial and economic injustice. The folklore of the Wendigo, for instance, has been reimagined in series like Penny Dreadful and The X-Files to symbolize insatiable greed and the destruction of the natural world. The monster becomes a symbol, and the horror book publisher becomes internalized dread wrapped in external terror.

The inherently fluid structure of myth lends itself well to television’s episodic structure. Each episode can function like a new telling of an old story, with variations that reflect the personal traumas and evolving societal norms. This keeps the material relevant without sacrificing its haunting essence. Audiences feel a deep familiarity, even if they’ve never heard the specific tale before, because the underlying emotions—terror of the unseen, suspicion of the different, the burden of ancestral guilt—are fundamentally human.

The success of these shows proves that audiences crave more than just spectacle—they want stories that feel anchored in ancestral truth, beyond the ephemeral. Myth offers this enduring weight—it links us to centuries of storytelling trying to confront fear, mystery, and peril. By honoring these traditions, contemporary horror TV doesn’t just entertain—it reminds us that some fears never fade—they only change their names.