Forget Stranger Things, Stephen King's New Horror Series Officially Hits Prime Video This Week

Published Oct 5, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. For any viewers who are still missing Netflix’s Stranger Things, Mike Flanagan’s new Stephen King adaptation on Prime Video has you more than covered. For some viewers, Netflix’s Addams Family spinoff, Wednesday, will be a perfect Stranger Things replacement. After all, both shows focus on female teen outcasts with supernatural powers finding their place in the world while also dealing with a small-town mystery, a generations-deep conspiracy, and a series of grisly monster attacks. However, as superficially similar as the two shows might sound, there is another side to Stranger Things that Wednesday fails to replicate. Long before Netflix’s Stranger Things spinoff Tales from ’85 lightened the tone of the franchise, the early seasons of the original series were heavily influenced by Stephen King. As such, Stranger Things expressed this influence with some unflinching depictions of small town bullying and bigotry. At times, the thuggish bullies and small-minded locals of Hawkins, Indiana seemed just as dangerous as the Demogorgon. While Stranger Things moved away from its harsher, darker side as the show continued, plenty of fans of the series yearned for more of the show’s King-inspired early years. In 2025, HBO’s long-awaited IT spinoff Welcome to Derry obliged with an R-rated horror series whose adolescent heroes were plagued by the social ills of ‘60s Americana as much as Pennywise’s presence. Now, Prime Video’s new King show Carrie can offer an equally perfect Stranger Things replacement for 2026. Prime Video’s Carrie Is Mike Flanagan’s First Horror Series In Three Years MovieStillsDB Coming from The Fall of the House of Usher writer/director Mike Flanagan, 2026’s upcoming Carrie marks the fourth screen adaptation of King’s 1974 debut novel. Like Stranger Things, Carrie tells the story of a misunderstood teenage girl who develops psychokinetic powers in a small rural American town. However, in Carrie, the title character’s relentless bullying by her classmates, as well as her abuse from her religious zealot mother, results in a much bloodier ending. While Stranger Things heroine Eleven turns her powers on monsters like Vecna and the Hawkins Lab scientists who experimented on her, suffice to say, Carrie’s eventual use of her powers is a lot more poignant and terrifying. Carrie was a bestseller upon release and soon spawned a classic 1976 movie adaptation of the same name from Dressed to Kill director Brian De Palma, before being remade as a critically derided TV movie in 2002. 1999, meanwhile, brought a misguided sequel, The Rage: Carrie 2, while 2013 saw Boys Don’t Cry director Kimberly Peirce direct a new adaptation of Carrie starring Chloë Grace Moretz as the eponymous lead character. After the success of many earlier Stephen King miniseries, Flanagan’s fresh take on the perennially popular book was almost inevitable. Flanagan’s Carrie Won’t Be His Last Stephen King Adaptation While this slew of earlier existing adaptations means that Carrie has plenty of movies to date, Flanagan’s track record proves that this miniseries is uniquely promising. With Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, Flanagan managed to turn two modern Gothic literary classics into sprawling, multi-generational horror drama epics that were as immersive and ambitious as they were both scary and tragic. If ever there was a filmmaker suited to reinventing Carrie, it would be Flanagan. Furthermore, the writer/director has an impressive track record of King adaptations specifically. In 2017, Flanagan turned the supposedly un-filmable King novel Gerald’s Game into a terrifying, thrilling, and moving horror drama, while in 2019 he adapted Doctor Sleep, King’s ambitious 2014 sequel to The Shining. Since then, Flanagan and King have teamed up for 2025’s fantasy drama The Life of Chuck, and Flanagan is soon set to turn King’s fantasy epic The Dark Tower into an ambitious series for Prime Video. Thus, Carrie won’t be the end of King and Flanagan’s Prime Video partnership, but it does look like a killer start and a compelling Stranger Things replacement to boot. Release Date 2026 - 2026-00-00 Network Prime Video Showrunner Mike Flanagan Cast Summer H. Howell Carrie White Matthew Lillard Principal Grayle Samantha Sloyan Margaret White