Last Nox saw the launch of American Horror Story , and it ’s just the beginning . October also sees the start of Once Upon a Time and Grimm , and the return of The Walking Dead . Horror and dark fantasy are preparing to dominate the belittled screen more than ever .
But how do you make dark , supernatural stories work on idiot box ? How can television possibly vie with movie for scares and special effects ? How do you keep a scary or dark story hold out , week after workweek ? We asked some of our favourite television writers to explicate how horror and gloomy fantasy can decree on television .
Top icon from Twin Peaks .
We spoke to :
Sera Gamble , executive producer of Supernatural
Josh Friedman , Divine of Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles and the unaired Locke and Key
Robert Hewitt Wolfe , who was a producer on The Gates and The Dresden Files , plus Star Trek : Deep Space Nine , The 4400 and Andromeda . He ’s now a co - executive producer on Alphas .
Jane Espenson , a co - executive manufacturer on Once Upon A clip whose other credit admit Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Firefly , Battlestar Galactica , Game of Thrones , Torchwood : Miracle Day , Caprica and Dollhouse
How do you freak people out without spend film money on particular effects ?
Gamble : Luckily for modestly budgeted productions everywhere , you’re able to frighten off people without pass much money . It ’s about create tenseness . A circumstances of the scariest sequences in celluloid and television set are essentially about people walking up ordinary hall to closed door . When execute really well , that kinda thing will freak out even the most jaded genre sports fan .
Friedman : the great unwashed have been scar people without expensive effects since the beginning of celluloid . wakeless pattern , editing , etc . canonic storytelling . You have to take your deterrent example from the past tense , rather than get all brainsick with what may exist technologically . The reality is , most VFX company make you a good deal of promises they ca n’t keep given the time and budget constraint . It ’s not their fault — they just get all hop up and excited and want to make you happy . But most of the time you ’re not . The realism is , most TV shows have horrible VFX . Even basic matte shot and comp for repulse scene , green silver screen , etc . It ’s abominable .
Wolfe : Your good wager , in telecasting , is to play to your strengths . TV is naturally somewhat claustrophobic , which works well for horror or suspense . Usually in TV , unlike film , the people most imperil are characters the viewers are already invested in , which adds to the sense of peril . And because we do n’t have to go for a expectant action scene every ten arcminute or so , TV has the sumptuosity of indulging in the kind of slow - build tension picture show seldom engage in . Luckily for people working in video , what you do n’t see is often more shivery than what you do see .
Espenson : Having worked on Caprica and now on Once Upon a Time , I am stupefy at the upshot that can be captured now within a TV budget , so if you require to grab some high - tech panic attack , that might well be something that a idiot box show could deliver really really well .
What about going too far for telly ?
Gamble : We sometimes do go too far . We ’re a electronic internet show ; much grosser interlingual rendition of several tantrum end up on the clipping room floor because we ’re obliged to make them less violent . But to the quotation of our meshwork , I ’m often surprised by what they allow us air . Anyone who ’s seen Supernatural get it on we get somewhat gory . We blow zombie heads sheer in one-half on camera .
How do you keep this proceed week after week ?
Gamble : I think every video show faces a variation of the same issue — how to ride out fresh . When our exec producers sit around down to start charting a course for the newfangled season , we always begin by inquire what let down us about the premature season , and what else we would have supply if we had more prison term . That ’s a in effect way to get hint for Modern focus .
Milton Friedman : If you swear too much on surprise , your show ’s gon na be hacky , and will pay masses moderately quickly . We ’re a savvy caboodle and watcher metabolize a show ’s storytelling structure quicker than we actualise . You need a lucidness of purpose and character so people can relax into the story — story , NOT game . Not outcome . What are you establish towards ? Just say a good story . well-situated to say , near impossible to do . You want to obtain an architecture that allow for a weekly story locomotive engine without creating a predictable crisis / crisis solved cringle . It ’s fine for a medical show , not for fantasy / horror .
give that repulsion and dark fantasy rely on surprise and mystery , how do you keep from explaining too much or creating a sense of familiarity , in a weekly television set show ?
Wolfe : The shorter data format helps here . In 45 minutes or less of blind time , you often do n’t have metre to explicate much . And like you articulate , horror and dark phantasy thrive on closed book . So the chronicle often works better with less account . There ’s always a tensity between overexplaining for sake of clarity and underexplaining for sake of mystery story , and successful show strike a delicate Libra the Scales between the two ( with the occasional but unavoidable over - chastisement one way or the other ) .
Is it well-situated to generate scare with a “ monster of the workweek ” or with a recurring freak ?
Wolfe : I prefer the recurring colossus when potential . On The Gates , I think Christian , our recurring lamia , was a wad scarier than any of our one of guest vamps , because the more time you spend with him , the more disturbing he became . But X - Files and Night Stalker had a mickle of succeeder with one - off baddies , so that can turn too . It really depends on whether you ’re doing a more contained , adjective , occasional show or a continuing serialized show . Both have their plusses and minus .
Milton Friedman : I was going to use the direct contrast between X - Files and Twin Peaks to resolve this , but it just contribute me to the big enquiry : what evidence do we have presently that anything truly shuddery can be on television ? I have n’t discover American Horror Story but I put on it ’s shivery and noisy and we ’ll see what its stick around index is . Those guys seem to have a bent for spectacle .
I enjoy True line of descent but it ’s more dark fantasy than horror . Will Grimm come through ? Will Once Upon a Time ? We ’ll know soon enough . But I ’m trusted neither of them are particularly chilling . Locke and Key would ’ve been a cross of the two story recite modes — Florida key of the week , mixed with the larger mystery of the family and their past times . We had a big bad for the season , as well .
commercial are a challenge : can you keep people frightened during a Mazda commercial ? This is something we talked about a lot during Locke and Key — where do you put act fracture to maximize suspense ? How do keep people feeling like they ’re trapped in a room with the story ? It ’s one of the reasons repulsion is specially hard on web TV .
How do you use on-going weekly case development to strengthen the repulsion / fantasy component , instead of having them be at betting odds ?
Espenson : Television has the advantage of cause massive opportunities for character development . And you ’re going to be more scared of the danger threatening these characters you know and love than you are if it was all pass to people you ’re only spend two hours with . In that way , the stake will keep naturally rising over the time of year as the hearing have more invest in the eccentric as hoi polloi .
Wolfe : Any sentence the audience is invested in who might live or die in a revulsion story , the storyteller wins . The trick is to verify they audience never sack the possibility of a given character kicking the bucket at a present moment ’s notice . Additionally , in dark fib , there ’s unremarkably some filthy drab arcanum at the heart of even your bright and light reference . television receiver throw the teller time to get to these secret lento and organically .
Gamble : It does n’t count how awesome your puppet are — if the audience does n’t give a shit about the characters , they ’re not kick the bucket to stick around . Actually , on a more basic spirit level , I ’ve never really part fantasy or horror storytelling from any other kind of storytelling . I want to see the great unwashed I can relate to going through difficult stuff , with striking or screaming results . Be it divorcement or foreign invasion . extraterrestrial for the sake of outlander go in video games .
Milton Friedman : Again , it all comes back to written material . How invested are we in our characters ? How much do we care about their well - being ? That ’s not necessarily their physical well - being - it ’s more likely their emotional and spiritual well - being .
You require to care about the hoi polloi in the fib . It ’s an insanely hackneyed point . But if you may do that , you may move an interview at a heart and soul storey and not just through superficial thrills . The two scariest show I look out are Luther and Breaking Bad . They center on around two phenomenally watchable characters who get eviscerate into some dark and fantastical blank space . Season 2 of Luther is terrorize . There are episode of break Bad that are sheer whitened knucklers .
The Monsters of the Week on Luther may be human but they are truly monster . They inhabit every nightmare we ever had as a kid , and more importantly , they inhabit every nightmare we have as adults . Neil Cross is a superstar because he understands what terrorize material hoi polloi , not just what entertains repugnance fans .
What ’s the bounteous misunderstanding people make in doing horror or dour fantasy on television ?
Wolfe : I think , since disco biscuit - Files , one of the big mistakes has been to taste to do repugnance as a adjective . The job is , research worker are by their very nature , super - competent . Plus they prefer to do the investigation . The audience does n’t worry about them the same elbow room they do some devoid schoolgirl or spirited telepathic waitress . I think to a sealed extent , this is what hamper both Dresden Files and The Gates . People were n’t all that worried about / for Harry Dresden or Nick Monohan . These were problematical , capable guys . So the repugnance aspects never worked when they were in peril . The consultation only became invested when an barren or less - heavily - fortify people were threaten .
Gamble : I think it ’s usually a mistake to approach the written material of a genre show as though it ’s different from any other case of show . The trappings are unlike , the toolbox is dissimilar , but an absorbing story is an absorbing story . It ’s not like E.T. made people cry for some whole new genre - specific set of reasons . Monsters are n’t nerveless on their own — in fact , on their own they ’ve all been done to death . So if they ’re not in a story that feel personal and specific , they reverse lame fast .
Friedman : The biggest mistake is thinking of them as horror or dark fantasy and piece of writing / shooting them as such . You at once fall into tired tropes and quickly become a captive of special effects you ’ll never be able to pull off week to week . I never reckon of Locke and Key as a horror show — I just thought of it as a story about a family who ’d gone through a trauma and was trying to move on . Granted , that ’s well-situated to say when there ’s a creepy girlfriend in a well , but still . You have to approach everything from quality and a grounded realness .
Mark Romanek and I babble all the time about creating the most realistic environs we could for these grotesque and scarey events . Make people feel like they ’re take in something very grounded and refined and tangible . As much as we ’d like to believe TV has become more filmic , it ’s still best done when it focuses on story and character and eschews spectacle and high concept humankind . But now I ’m sounding like an old humanity .
Want to interpret a longer version of these interviews ? Here’sthe full - distance version , which we cut back for duration reasons here .
https://gizmodo.com/horror-and-dark-fantasy-on-television-the-full-length-5847392
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