‘Stranger Things’ Just Ended, but This Underrated Replacement Thriller Quietly Pulled 43.8M Hours of Views

After a decade, Stranger Things has finally come to an end — or at least the main series has. Netflix will release the animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales from '85 later this year, while some fans have concocted a theory that the streamer is holding on to a super-secret episode that serves as the real season finale. Right now, the future of Stranger Things is up in the air based on where Netflix decides to go with the property, not to mention the fact that series creators Ross & Matt Duffer have a new creative deal at Paramount. However, one supernatural Netflix series is proving to fill the gap left by Stranger Things's conclusion.

Sweet Home was one of the top five most watched horror TV shows in 2025, pulling in an impressive 43.8 million hours streamed on FlixPatrol's charts. The series is inspired by Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan's webtoon of the same name, and features a gnarly premise. Cha Hyun-su (Song Kang) is the only survivor of a car crash that claims his family's lives, and moves into the rundown apartment complex called Green Home. One night, a legion of monsters descends upon the Earth, forcing Hyun-soo and his neighbors to band together for survival. Matters aren't helped by the fact that Hyun-soo can transform into one of these monsters, leaving him caught between two worlds.

‘Sweet Home’ Takes Swings That ‘Stranger Things’ Seemed Afraid To Do

It's easy to see how Stranger Things fans might be drawn to Sweet Home. Like Stranger Things, Sweet Home features a teenager struggling with abilities beyond his comprehension and the existence of monsters, while finding solidarity with an unlikely group of friends. However, the major difference lies in the lengths that each series is willing to go through. Over the course of five seasons, Stranger Things seemed to shy away from killing off or even putting any of its main characters in mortal danger. Sweet Home, on the other hand, isn't shy about killing off main characters. By the end of Season 1, a good chunk of Hyun-soo's neighbors have fallen victim to monsters or the army.

Another major difference between Sweet Home and Stranger Things is in the depiction of a superpowered teenager. While Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) does struggle with her telekinetic abilities, she's able to live a life with Hopper (David Harbour) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard). Hyun-soo, on the other hand, doesn't have that support system. Even though he bonds with some of the other neighbors, he keeps his transformations a secret from them, and when he does transform into a monster it takes a massive toll on his body. The loss of his family also left him in a suicidal state, which he has to deal with on top of the apocalypse. The fact that Sweet Home doesn't shy away from the darkness of its source material gives it a definite edge over Stranger Things.

‘Sweet Home’ Is Part of a Wave of Popular Korean Horror Dramas on Netflix

Sweet Home isn't the only breakout foreign horror hit on Netflix, as the streamer has created a penchant for developing Korean-based horror dramas. All of Us Are Dead explores what happens when high school students have to band together in the face of a zombie apocalypse, while Kingdom also features zombies but in the aftermath of the Imjin War, melding horror with political thriller. While Kingdom and All of Us Are Dead also take their inspiration from webtoons, this explosion in foreign shows is mostly due to the runaway success of Squid Game. Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria would highlight this push for foreign shows in a 2021 interview with Vulture:

"We always knew it was going to be a signature title for Korea, but there’s no way to have anticipated it would be this big...People hear about it, people talk about it, people love it, and there’s a very social aspect to that, which does help grow the show outside of what we do."

With Sweet Home racking up views, it's highly possible that Netflix's next Stranger Things-sized hit could be a foreign show. For now, fans who are suffering from Stranger Things withdrawals or were disappointed by the series finale have a new series to check out.