Stephen King’s New Horror Hit Officially Passes Massive Streaming Milestone Ahead of Season 2

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Having unseated the blockbuster Prime Video series Reacher and Neagley from the top of the Prime Video streaming charts, Stephen King‘s new horror limited series has fended off competition from another heavy hitter. This week saw the long-awaited return of the action-thriller show The Terminal List, starring Chris Pratt. The show has been on hiatus for four years, but it could only manage a third-place finish on the global Prime Video leaderboard upon its return on October 21. The streamer’s number-one show remained the King adaptation. The latest edition of the Nielsen viewership report shed more light on the show’s viewership, revealing that it took the crown in its first week of release.

The show debuted alongside two Netflix series — the six-part supernatural horror hit Below, and the seven-part literary adaptation East of Eden. According to Nielsen, both shows cracked the 1 billion minutes watched milestone in their debuts. Netflix reports they have generated 38 million and 25 million views, respectively. Below owes a huge creative debt to King’s work, which also influenced this year’s breakout Apple TV hit, Widow’s Bay. However, 2026 has been relatively lean when it comes to official King adaptations, which is unusual, considering how many were released in 2025. The new Prime Video show has proven that it’s better late than never.

Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.

Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.

• Freddy is horror’s cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
  guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
• You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your
  own head is where this does its damage.
• These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
  because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
• You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.

Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the
person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.

• Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
  describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
• You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You
  know that feeling from real life too.
• The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
  have met those adults.
• By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.

Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.

• Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be
  somebody who was at the party.
• You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the
  same way you watch films.
• The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
  the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
• Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.

Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.

• The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
  room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
• Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than
  personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
• This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
  the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
• Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
  standing in the hallway.

Here’s Where the New Horror Show Stood on the Nielsen Report

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Image via Prime Video

We’re talking, of course, about the eight-part limited series Carrie — the novel was previously adapted into a cult classic movie by Brian De Palma in 1976, and then remade in 2013 by Kimberly Peirce. The new series was created by Mike Flanagan, who previously directed the King adaptations Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and The Life of Chuck, in addition to the King-inspired shows The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass. Carrie continued Flanagan’s streak of delivering acclaimed hits, and is now sitting at a “Certified Fresh” 85% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator website’s consensus reads, “Mike Flanagan aptly expands this teen mythos with added compassion and ingenuity, bringing a modern touch to a timeless work and giving all performers involved the opportunity to shine while witnessing the ascension of a fascinatingly new Carrie.” The show took the number-one spot in its first week of release, with Nielsen reporting that it amassed 1.2 billion minutes watched. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.