Television series

The Terror

Name: The Terror
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Released: 2018
Cast: Jared Harris, Paul Ready, Adam Nagaitis, Tobias Menzies, Ciarán Hinds

The Terror recreates the doomed 1845 Franklin expedition: two ships locked in Arctic ice, crews facing scurvy, starvation, mutiny, and a monstrous presence hunting them across the ice. It's less jump-scare horror than slow, freezing dread — gorgeous, grim, and unhurried. The real engine is character: command breaking down, decency curdling under pressure. Best for patient viewers who want atmosphere and moral complexity over fast plotting.

TVMaze rating

7.3

If you liked this

The North Water2021

A Victorian whaling ship trapped in Arctic ice, a killer aboard, and the same slow collapse of order under freezing pressure — Colin Farrell and Jack O'Connell make it feel just as bleak and beautifully shot.

But Only five episodes, so it's over almost as soon as the dread sets in properly.

The Thing1982

Isolation, paranoia, something inhuman using the cold and the crew's own fear against them — the purest distillation of 'trapped with a monster and each other' cinema has ever made.

But It's a monster movie first, and won't give you the sprawling character drama the series builds over ten hours.

Chernobyl2019

Different catastrophe, same slow horror of men in authority making fatal decisions while institutions protect themselves instead of the people freezing or dying underneath them.

But No supernatural or monstrous element at all — the horror here is entirely bureaucratic and human.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Scott of the Antarctic1948no page yet

Both dramatize a real, doomed British polar expedition undone by hubris, ice and command decisions made too late — but this one was made when the stiff-upper-lip version of the story was still the official one, decades before The Terror's revisionist horror.

See the myth The Terror is quietly demolishing — noble sacrifice, restrained grief, empire dressed as heroism — filmed with real Antarctic footage and an unfashionable sincerity.

But It's stagey, patriotic and emotionally reserved in exactly the ways modern audiences find alienating.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World2003

The best rendering of shipboard hierarchy, hardship and grudging loyalty under sail — the camaraderie and command tension The Terror mines for dread, played here for adventure and warmth instead.

But It's rousing rather than harrowing; nobody's morale here is being slowly annihilated.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World poster

The Revenant2015

Brutal, unglamorous survival against wilderness, betrayal and the cold itself, with a lead performance built entirely from endurance rather than dialogue.

But It's a solitary survival story, not an ensemble one — you lose the slow group unraveling that makes The Terror so unnerving.

In the Heart of the Sea2015

The real Essex whaling disaster that inspired Moby-Dick — starvation, desperation and terrible choices at sea, dramatized with real weight.

But Framed by a clunky interview device that keeps interrupting the momentum of the disaster itself.

Alien1979

Swap ice for space and you get the same premise distilled to its essence: a crew, a confined vessel, something that shouldn't exist picking them off one by one.

But It's tighter and faster than The Terror's patient dread — a completely different rhythm despite the shared bones.

The Grey2011

Liam Neeson leads plane-crash survivors through wolf-stalked snow, and the film is unexpectedly serious about mortality, grief, and what men do when nature has already decided the ending.

But It's bleaker and more philosophical than its trailer promised, which can feel like a bait-and-switch.

18992022no page yet

A mysterious ship, a diverse crew slowly turning on each other, uncanny events nobody can explain — a modern, glossier cousin of The Terror's slow unraveling.

But It ends on a huge cliffhanger with no second season coming, which can feel like a betrayal after the investment.

Dead Snow2009no page yet

Same premise pushed into schlock: a frozen wasteland, starving men turned monstrous, cannibalism as the ultimate horror — but played for splatter comedy instead of tragedy, a gleeful trash-mirror of what The Terror treats with total seriousness.

If part of what unsettled you was the cannibalism and men turning monstrous, this gives you the exact same engine cranked up into gory, ridiculous fun.

But It's a Nazi-zombie comedy with practically no interest in character or dread — pure gore-comedy, tonally the opposite of everything else here.