Television series
Forever Home
A Channel 5 thriller about the woman who comes after: Carol moves into a house that already had a wife in it, and then finds a body in the basement to prove it. It's brisk, nasty-minded domestic suspense with a decent cast and a plot that keeps handing you a new worst-case scenario. Watch it if you like your marriages haunted by furniture as well as ghosts.
If you liked this
Doctor Foster2015
The gold standard for suburban-England-hides-a-monster drama. Suranne Jones is magnificent as a wife whose suspicion curdles into something much scarier than grief.
But Series two overreaches after the perfect first run peaks early and hard.
Liar2017
A one-night stand becomes a he-said-she-said that keeps rewriting itself. Ioan Gruffudd is chillingly plausible as a man who might be exactly what he claims not to be.
But The twists escalate past believable into soap territory by the finale.
Safe2018no page yet
Harlan Coben's gated-community thriller about a body that surfaces and a street full of people with reasons to want it gone. Pacy, silly in the best way, very bingeable.
But Every single neighbour has a secret, which after episode four starts to feel less like plotting and more like a running joke.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Rebecca1940
This is the exact premise of Forever Home stripped to its 1940 bones — new wife, old wife's ghost, house that won't let go of its secret.
Hitchcock's original haunted-second-wife story, and the template everything else on this list is quietly ripping off. A house, a dead predecessor, a husband who won't say why the room stays locked.
But Black-and-white, stately pace, and a Mrs Danvers who does more with a stare than most modern thrillers do with a body count.
More like this (8)
Behind Her Eyes2021
The definitive second-wife-obsessed-with-the-first-wife thriller, right down to the house full of her things. The ending is either brilliant or unforgivable depending who you ask.
But That ending really does divide people — some feel cheated rather than surprised.
The Widow2019no page yet
Kate Beckinsale as a woman who thinks her presumed-dead husband is alive, chasing him through jungle and conspiracy. Glossy, overstuffed, hugely entertaining.
But It piles on continents and coincidences until the plausibility gauge is fully in the red.
Angela Black2021no page yet
A domestic-abuse thriller that keeps pulling the rug out about who's really in danger. Joanne Froggatt is quietly devastating.
But It's grimmer and slower than the buried-body pulp its marketing suggests.
Cheat2019
Katherine Kelly and Molly Windsor circle each other with genuine menace in a tight four-parter about obsession and academic fraud spiralling into something worse.
But Short and sharp, which means it resolves faster and more simply than you'll want.
Blood2018no page yet
Irish family drama where a mother's death and a father's second relationship crack a house full of grown children wide open. Slow-burn and genuinely unsettling.
But It trades thriller momentum for family-drama dread, which won't satisfy anyone wanting quick answers.
Harlan Coben's Fool Me Once2024no page yet
Another Coben special: a widow sees her supposedly dead husband on a nanny cam. Fast, twisty, thoroughly comfortable Sunday-night trash done well.
But The plotting relies on people making baffling decisions purely to keep the mystery alive.
The Staircase2022
Same engine, no fiction to soften it: a spouse, a body, a house, and the unbearable ambiguity of living with someone you can't fully trust or fully accuse.
The documentary that asks the question Forever Home only pretends to: what do you actually do when the person you married might be a killer, and the evidence never quite settles it either way.
But It's real people, real grief, and deliberately inconclusive — there's no satisfying reveal waiting at the end.
Crimson Peak2015
Takes Forever Home's exact shape — new wife, old wife's house, a secret the husband can't bear to sell up on — and plays it as gothic horror instead of ITV-style domestic thriller.
A gorgeous gothic horror where a new bride moves into a crumbling house that still belongs, in every sense, to the husband's dead first wife. Ghosts, secrets, and a genuinely upsetting family history.
But It's lush melodrama and full-blown horror rather than grounded suspense — expect actual ghosts, not metaphorical ones.
People
Cast
Production
- Clara SalamanExecutive Producer
- Erika KennairExecutive Producer
- Graham NortonExecutive Producer
- JC AcostaExecutive Producer
- Kirstie MacdonaldExecutive Producer
- Will NicholsonProducer