Good news for fans of murders, monsters and mysteries: the best Samsung TVs are getting a whole lot more murderous, monstrous and mysterious with the arrival of two brilliant streaming channels, Shudder and Acorn TV. Apps for both channels are already in the Apps Store, and they're free to try and cheap to subscribe to.
It's good to see these apps make it across to the Samsung range: I watch Shudder on my Samsung TV and until now I've had to use it via my Apple TV because there wasn't a native app. Samsung's range of TV apps was already very good, and these two new arrivals make it even better.
These are both great channels, and the subscriptions cost considerably less than the better-known TV apps such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. They're brilliant additions for genre fans, and they've both got big plans for more shows in 2022.
Many of horror
For me the big news here is Shudder, which I love: it's dedicated to horror, supernatural thrillers and things that go bump, eek and aaaagh in the night, mixing new releases – the new Creepshow series is brilliant – and genre-defining classics such as John Carpenter's original and never-bettered Halloween.
As for Acorn TV, it's slightly less frightening but no less murderous. It's dedicated to detective stories and mysteries, and while the shows and films are considerably less gory there's still a massive body count. You'll find some very familiar faces here: John Leslie in Amnesia, Guy Pearce in Jack Irish, Lucy Lawless in My Life Is Murder and much, much more.
