The annual avalanche of holiday programming has descended on us, and yet, so much of prime-time television seems stuck in a Halloween state of mind. Scary? Oooh, really scary, as Joe Flaherty's "SCTV" character Count Floyd might howl in appreciation.

And, hold on to your bats, it's not just vampires creeping around the increasingly graphic and gory TV terror-tory. We've got zombies, witches, werewolves, ghosts and, yes, more vampires than you can shake a stake at.

Maybe it's the national jitters over an uncertain economic future. Horror tends to thrive during times of crisis, offering catharsis, escapism and a metaphoric means of coping with problems that seem unsolvable.

That's true on a personal and societal level. It certainly was true during the Great Depression, when Universal Pictures was rescued from bankruptcy by its golden age of horror films: "Dracula" (1931), "Frankenstein" (1931), "The Invisible Man" (1933) and their fiendish friends.

Maybe it's the increasingly polarized political landscape, generating so much us-vs.-them rhetoric. Maybe it's college students' fears of finding jobs or middle-aged parents' worries about keeping their homes. Or maybe it's simply that, good times or bad, some of us always enjoy a safe approximation of the death equation, standing in long lines for the latest horror flick or the most recent development in roller-coaster thrills.

Maybe there's no maybe about it. Whatever the reason or combination of reasons, horror is scaring up loads of viewers these days.

Let's start with FX's edgy and way-out-there "American Horror Story," the relentlessly weird newcomer kicking up so much attention this fall. Network drama veterans Dylan McDermott ("The Practice") and Connie Britton ("Friday Night Lights") star in this often-disturbing, sometimes-hilarious cable drama that follows a troubled family moving into a haunted house so overrun with spirits, it makes Stephen King's Overlook Hotel look like the kiddie-ride section of Disneyland.

The next-to-last episode of the first season airs at 10 p.m. this Wednesday. The season finale airs at 10 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 21. Somewhere in this Gothic structure you'll find echoes of almost every haunted-house story ever done (including King's "The Shining"), with dashes of "Rosemary's Baby," "Twin Peaks" and "Dark Shadows" tossed in for gruesome flavoring.

Give us more gore

This all would seem pretty extreme if the blood bar hadn't been set so horrifically high in the cable realm by AMC's "The Walking Dead." The seventh episode of the zombie drama's second season aired Nov. 27. It returns Feb. 12.

Based on the graphic novels by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, "The Walking Dead" stars Andrew Lincoln as a lawman leading a band of survivors in a world taken over by zombies. It is here you'll find state-of-the-art zombie makeup, stomach-turning decapitations and guts galore.

Despite the acclaim and fan adoration heaped upon "The Walking Dead" and "American Horror Story," neither may be the best horror series on cable. That distinction probably belongs to HBO's "True Blood," which begins its fifth season next summer. Writer-producer Alan Ball's adaptation of "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" by novelist Charlaine Harris stars Anna Paquin as telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse and Stephen Moyer as vampire Bill Compton.

Digging deep into the American psyche, "True Blood" uses its many supernatural beings to metaphorically explore modern society. Underscoring the popularity of horror is the realization that three of the undisputed leaders in the cable-drama field -- HBO, FX and AMC -- are experimenting so successfully with the supernatural.

And this is just the tip of the tombstone. Joining the macabre mix at 9 p.m. Sunday is "Stephen King's Bag of Bones," a two-part A&E miniseries based on our leading frightmeister's 1998 novel about a writer who moves to an isolated lake house four years after the death of his wife. Pierce Brosnan plays the grieving author who befriends a widow and her daughter.

More? The aptly named cable channel Chiller unveils its own zombie apocalypse saga, "Steve Niles' Remains," at 10 p.m. Friday. Also based on a graphic novel, the movie rolls the terror dice with a group of survivors taking refuge in a Nevada casino.

Strolling past all these vampires and zombies, casual viewers would be well within their rights to ask, "Is this the season of good will and holiday spirit, or blood spilled and haunting spirits?" Then again, ghost stories at Christmas are a tradition in many cultures. And what the Dickens is "A Christmas Carol" if not a ghost story?

Look before and beyond the holidays, however, and it's frighteningly clear that the Halloween season is a year-round business. So many viewers. So many fears to probe.

Don't forget the werewolves

Since HBO had the vampires and AMC claimed the zombies, MTV let the fur fly with a werewolf series. Its reimagining of the Michael J. Fox comedy "Teen Wolf" as a drama was so successful this year, averaging 1.7 million viewers, a second season is in production. Like "True Blood," it returns in the summer.

Not to be outdone, BBC America has been airing "Being Human," the British series about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing an apartment. The fourth season begins early next year (minus the original vampire, Mitchell, played by Aidan Turner), and an American version, set in Boston, starts its second SyFy season Jan. 16.

BBC America also carries the stylish British series "Bedlam," and SyFy launches a fourth season of "Warehouse 13" with North Canton native Eddie McClintock next year.

And supernatural beings are working overtime, luring young women to the CW, seen in this area on WNBX Channel 55. Where would the CW be without "The Vampire Diaries," "The Secret Circle" and "Supernatural"?

Starring Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles as brothers battling all sorts of beasties, "Supernatural" premiered in 2005. A steady ratings performer for the CW, it was followed by "The Vampire Diaries," premiering in 2009 and posting even higher numbers (averaging more than 3.5 million viewers during its freshman season). "The Secret Circle," a drama about witches, was added this fall.

There's more, of course, but you get the eerie idea. To keep things in perspective, none of these horror shows is putting up numbers anywhere close to, say "NCIS" (averaging more than 22 million viewers) and "Dancing With the Stars" (about 20 million). While horror may be coming at ya' from a variety of angles, there's no danger of it taking over.

But it's there, all right, lurking around the TV corner, for anyone who wants it . . . or needs it.