New 8-Part Horror Series Based On Legendary Folktale Debuts To Stellar Rotten Tomatoes Score

Published Oct 22, 2026, 1:36 PM EDT

Abdullah Al-Ghamdi joined Screen Rant in August 2019 and is now one of the leading contributors of the TV News team. Having written over 4000 news stories in that time , with his work cited in Buzzfeed and TV Insider, he's always bemoaning that there's too many shows and not enough time. You can contact him at: aalghamdi@hey.com.

A new horror series has debuted with an excellent Rotten Tomatoes score.

It has been a perhaps unusually strong year for the genre on the small screen. Although the mind first wanders to high-profile adaptations, like Mike Flanagan's Carrie and Crystal Lake, which is a Pamela Voorhees-focused take on Friday the 13th, the shining example may be Apple TV's Widow's Bay. It has the Emmy wins, critical acclaim, and a quick season 2 renewal.

Crave's new horror series Yaga, which streams on AMC+ in the U.S., looks to continue the highs of 2026. It stars familiar faces, including Heated Rivalry's Hudson Williams and The Matrix icon Carrie-Anne Moss, enlisting the pair to offer a new perspective on the Slavic folklore legend of Baba Yaga. The first episodes drop on October 23, and critics are responding favorably so far.

Yaga has debuted with an 80% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The score is based on five reviews so far, so it will likely change as more reviews are added in the coming days and weeks. Four of the reviews are positive, with only one being categorized as negative. The Average of Rated Reviews (viewable by clicking on the Tomatometer) is 7.50 out of 10. This indicates that the sentiment among reviewers is solidly positive rather than a binary Fresh or Rotten judgment.

Yaga reimagines the legend of its title, with the folklore telling that she is a murderer or a powerful seducer. In particular, it focuses on Charlie Rapp (played by Schitt's Creek star Noah Reid), a private investigator who arrives in the small coastal town of Whittock. His goal is to investigate the disappearance of a young man, Henry Park (Williams). He soon finds himself at odds with Carson (Clark Backo of Venom: The Last Dance), a local detective with a more apprehensive approach.

There's also Katherine (Moss), who is described as “a charismatic university professor with a taste for younger men.” It all adds up to a bevy of strange suspects, secrets, and magic with its own history. Sheila McCarthy, Megan Follows, Ezra Franky, Patrick Gilmore, Katharine Isabelle, and Hiro Kanagawa also star, as do Emilija Baranac, Georgia Acken, Anisa Harris, and Sam Krochmal. Kat Sandler created the new horror based on her play, and she also serves as writer, showrunner, and executive producer.

ScreenRant's review of Yaga by Andy Behbakht, based on seven of the horror show's eight episodes, praises the Crave and AMC+ drama for the performances of the leads. There are, likewise, compliments for how the narrative fuses elements of investigation, mythology, and the supernatural with an overall steaminess that should delight Heated Rivalry fans.

Some of the less positive takes find that Yaga works less well as a television show than it does as a stage play and ultimately misses the mark. But with episodes hovering around the 30-minute mark, it is an easy enough recommendation to sample and see if it's the type of premise that excels in a late October outing.

Yaga premieres on AMC+withtwo episodes, followed by a new episode every Friday, until the finale on November 27.