The dark side of crime : Criminal Minds, S1-10, now on Showmax

Update: Criminal Minds is no longer on Showmax. Find your next binge in the full series catalogue here.

Action fans have tons to watch on  Showmax. But if you’re after something darker, full of twists, thrills and out-right macabre, look no further than drama series Criminal Minds (2005-current).

And while it’s not quite the full boxset yet, there is more than enough drama, action and suspense in the series to keep any viewer happy. “I’ve been here since the primeval days, when the first crimes were committed,” laughs series lead star Thomas Gibson, who plays FBI profiler Agent Aaron Hotchner. “You never know with shows and how successful they are. The pilot was a great script. But we have found our audience and we are giving them what they want, which is great television with great action.”

He’s not joking either. While Thomas left the show after 12 seasons, it’s still one of the most-watched procedural dramas on TV and has kept its ratings going strong over the 13 seasons to date. That’s largely thanks to its driving theme: hunting the “UnSub”. The FBI’s special task force known as the BAU (Behavioural Analysis Unit) investigate murder crimes and their main job is to search for the killer – aka the Unknown Subject, or UnSub for short.

“Our audience came to us and found something they really hooked into,” says Thomas. “The characters are like a split of Sherlock Holmes. We each have a different special area that we use to approach these investigations.”

It’s not just the crime solving that brings the team together, adds Thomas. “The show runners have always emphasised family – this team are a unit and they work well together. Well, not always. But they do their job like a well-oiled machine.” Adding to the team is Shemar Moore as supervisory special agent Derek Morgan, Matthew Gray Grubler as supervisory special agent Spencer Reid and AJ Cook as BAU communications liaison Jennifer Jareau, as well as others who’ll lead the BAU in their investigations.

Now for the nitty-gritty stuff – and we’re being serious about gritty. These five episodes are guaranteed so send shivers down your spine with their creepy crimes and killers.

Legacy: Season 2, episode 22

Someone is kidnapping homeless people in Kansas City and experimenting on them in an abattoir-like factory. If you think the Saw (2004-current) movies were crazy and gruesome, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Wait for the bloody bare feet wondering around in the dark trying to make their way through an obstacle course. And let’s just put it like this: if you fail, there’s a cry of “off with his feet!”

Lucky: Season 3, episode 8

Feeling peckish? Make sure you’re eating a salad for this one! A Satanist cannibal is the slicer and dicer in this episode and he makes Dr Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs (1991) look like a vegan. Besides literally cutting his way through his victims, our killer also feeds them to his unsuspecting fellow diners at dinner parties.

Hopeless: Season 5, episode 4

Big Brother is watching and these walls have eyes – literally! A group of UnSubs who murder for the thrill of it find themselves a body short after their murder spree. That’s because one naughty killer has a flair for the dramatic and has hidden one of his victims inside the walls in a house he’s helping to build.

Epilogue: Season 7, episode 6

The BAU team swap Seattle for a California nature reserve to investigate corpses filling a local lake. But this time it’s not only the victims and their murders that are upping the creepy factor – the UnSub’s traumatic flashbacks to a childhood full of torture and abuse are enough to make even the strongest of stomachs churn.

SPOILER ALERT: one of the BAU team members dies in this episode.

God complex: Season 8, episode 4

Move over, Dr Frankenstein: there’s a new surgeon in town and he’s chopping up bodies. While it’s for a good cause – the doc is trying to replace his wife’s amputated leg – you can’t just run around cutting people’s legs off. But that’s exactly what he does … and he’s not being all that precise and delicate with his victims either. Besides, who cares if they die? As long as our UnSub doctor gets a helping, er, leg.