Showrunner Nick Antosca Talks CHANNEL ZERO: CANDLE COVE

Giving horror fans enough nightmare fuel to last them until next Halloween, Channel Zero: Candle Cove has cranked up the fright factor to eleven over its first four episodes. Over the past couple of weeks, Daily Dead, along with other journalists, had the opportunity to take part in conference calls with showrunner Nick Antosca, who discussed adapting Kris Straub's unsettling creepypasta, how the show found a home at Syfy, getting Greg Nicotero's help in designing the look of The Tooth Child, and what to expect in season 2, which will focus on Brian Russell's NoEnd House.

Nick Antosca on which puppet-like character scared him growing up and having Don Mancini (Child's Play films) in the writers' room for Candle Cove:

When I was a kid, they used to play that [Child's Play] on USA all the time. I remember seeing Child’s Play 2 and Chucky killing the teacher, Beth Grant [Miss Kettlewell], in a closet in the school room and that stuck with me as particularly horrible.

And also the moment where he comes to life in the first movie, it’s just so nasty and so viscerally unpleasant, especially watching it as a kid, it’s deeply disturbing. And so, yes, that was one. And we have an element of Child’s Play in Candle Cove because Don Mancini, who created Child’s Play, who wrote and/or directed every Child’s Play movie, is part of the writers' room.

He co-wrote episode two, and he also co-wrote the finale and then he wrote an episode in season two, and he’s a good friend of mine, I worked with him on Hannibal, too, so that was really cool.

On where Mike Painter was sent to live after his brother died:

He was sent to live with relatives. After his brother died, his mom basically had a nervous breakdown and she couldn’t deal with one after she lost the other one. So she sent him to live with his relatives. It’s briefly alluded to in the interview in the opening. But we never get into explicit detail about exactly where he went. In the backstory that we built, he was sent to live with an aunt and an uncle and they raised him until he went to college. And he’s stayed in touch in a very kind of strange way with his mom, but he hasn’t gone back to Iron Hill and both of them have this unspoken stuff in the past about what happened when Eddie died.

On the status and cast of Channel Zero Season 2, which will be based on the NoEnd House creepypasta:

We’re shooting it right now. We’re more than halfway done shooting. I am talking to you from Manitoba where we film the show. It is based on the NoEnd House, which is a creepypasta short story by Brian Russell.

It’s another one that is very popular, it’s got a bunch of fan fiction and kind of fanbase and sequels floating around online. It’s a whole different cast, a whole different director, because we get a new director that [will] do every episode of each season. This is Steven Piet, who did fantastic indie film called Uncle John which you can see on Netflix, and it [season 2] stars Amy Forsyth, John Carroll Lynch, who played Twisty the Clown in American Horror Story and the Zodiac Killer in Zodiac. And it will be out I believe one year after the first one in October 2017 on Syfy.

Antosca discussed whether or not Channel Zero season taking place in a shared universe:

They should function completely independently. You won’t need to have seen one to see the others, and there won’t be things that you need to know about the first one to appreciate if you watch the second one, for example.

That said, a lot of the same people are working on it behind the camera, actually, all the same writers are working on each season. So it is likely that you will see certain playful elements that connect each season, you may see things from Candle Cove that particularly attentive viewers would notice in the NoEnd House season and beyond. So it’s not part of the DNA of the show, we don’t have to do that, but there will probably be Easter eggs.

On season 1's theme being somewhat reminiscent of Stephen King's IT and the influence of Peter Straub's Blue Rose Trilogy:

And for the connection to Steven King’s It, it was not intentional. I’m a huge Stephen King fan. I actually haven’t read IT since I was a teenager, and it was only sort of when we went through in the writers' room and [were] breaking this through like, “Oh yes, this is... an adult going back to his hometown and confronting an evil that he faced when he was a kid.” It’s more influenced I would say by stuff like The Returned, the TV [show] just totally. And actually Peter Straub’s novels, the Blue Rose Trilogy, which are about many cases of people confronting childhood evils.

On Greg Nicotero's involvement with the haunting design of The Tooth Child:

There’s digital, a raising of the scene and stuff like that. But, yes, it’s a suit that was made by François Dagenais and designed by Francois and also Greg Nicotero, who just like as a favor, as a friend, did the initial sketches.

And yes, it’s our 19-year-old actress/dancer Cassandra Consiglio just wearing a very, very disturbing suit. And overall, the philosophy with the effects was like, let’s do it practical. It’s just sort of more interesting.

On Mrs. Booth's (Marina Stephenson Kerr) involvement with the eerie occurrences in Iron Hill:

Mrs. Booth is the character who, if you grew up in a small town, you had her as a teacher, right? She’s the one who knows everybody, knows everybody’s kids. She’s the sweet, friendly lady. And in this particular story, she has a very, very dark secret.

And Mrs. Booth is named after my favorite high school teacher who’s the person who told me that I should be a writer and keep writing my weird little short stories. So, that’s going to match to somebody who had a huge influence on me.

She has a particular interest in Mike. And the line that she said to him when we met her in episode 1 has some fanatic significance. And we’re going to find out in the next couple of episodes why she is interested in protecting Mike.

On expanding the stories of creepypastas in Channel Zero:

One of the things that I’ve said a lot when talking about this is I love movies and TV and books that—I love stories that feel like nightmares. I’m not super interested in traditional storytelling, but much more in nightmare logic and things that capture that atmosphere. And one of the opportunities that adapting creepypastas offers is [that they're] so short and so condensed and simple that they offer a lot of opportunity for expansion.

And so I want to make every season feel like a nightmare inspired by the original creepypasta that maintains the spirit, but expands on it in a new storytelling universe. And Candle Cove of course is... a mood, a feeling, it’s a puppet show. And we just try to take that feeling and a few of the specific details that Kris Straub created and take them further.

And, you know, my favorite adaptations tend to be things that get on with the spirit of the original but expand on them and give you something new, like the Fargo adaptation, which invents a ton of stuff but I think maintains very faithfully the spirit of the original.

On how many teeth are featured on The Tooth Child costume:

Oh, man. You know, I know that number; I have that number somewhere. I’m not sure exactly what it is. It’s like 1000. And François Dagenais, who built the suit did it in—you know, we gave him like no time. And he did just an amazing job. So, it’s one of things that I hope to get one day from whatever NBCUniversal warehouse it’s stored in and have in my home.

On how Channel Zero landed on Syfy:

We have a lot of freedom. You never have complete freedom really in TV or movies. But the way this came about is, you know, we pitched the idea of the anthology show around to a bunch of different networks—probably 10 or 12 of them. Four or five were interested in the show. It was like Syfy and Amazon and a couple other places.

And Bill McGoldrick, who’s the president of Syfy, called me up and said, “Here’s why you should come to Syfy. I know you may think that we do one thing, but we want to do other things. And we’re really excited about this. And we will protect your vision for the show.” And so, that’s why we ended up on Syfy. And he was as good as his word.

The idea of having one director for an entire season in making the show a showcase for directors came later when we decided to make it six episodes per season, which is a feasible number for one director to do and to block shoot it like a film. And once I made the case for this sort of anthology showcase for directors, Syfy was very enthusiastic.

Once they told me what our budget was going to be, which is very, very low, I actually was able to use that to our advantage by saying, “Okay, if we want to get a show that looks really good and it feels cinematic and interesting, we just can’t shoot it like traditional TV. We have to be innovative and maximize what resources we do have. So, we’re not going to shoot traditional coverage. We’re going to just storyboard and prepare very meticulously.” And the studio and network were very supportive of that.

And in terms of the shooting style, what [was] really important to that was hiring Noah Greenberg as the cinematographer—that’s Craig’s DP who worked on The Boy, which is a very, very beautiful film which feels nothing like TV. And once we turned in the cuts, in fairness, the network was understandably a little freaked out. They [we]re like, “What are all these long takes and stuff?”

And it was like, “No, no. Trust us. This is exactly what we always talked about. There’s no jump scares. It’s a feeling of dread. It’s character-based horror.” And, again, they understood and supported us. We’re very lucky to be on Syfy right now when they have an appetite for interesting, unusual things.

On casting Natalie Brown as Jessica:

Natalie is great. And she hilariously does not like scary stuff. She’s not a horror movie person. She’s in The Strain and she’s in this and dealing with scary kids and is totally creeped out. And she’s always sending me and Craig [Macneill] texts like, “Oh, my god. I can’t watch this when the episodes air.” She’s freaked out.

And yes, I had seen her in The Strain. I saw her audition [for Channel Zero] and Craig hasn’t seen The Strain. Both of us were like, “It’s her, it’s her. She’s got to do it.” And she just approached Jess as a well-rounded, mostly happy person who is sucked into this stuff that she can’t understand. It’s like, you know, last week I had, not a perfect life, but a happy life and a family and suddenly I’m in the middle of this nightmare.

And Natalie has this quality of just effortless realness that sells the character and that experience. And you’re just immediately sympathetic to her when she’s onscreen. So, yes, she’s somebody who I hope would return in future seasons because it was great to work with her.

Antosca also talked about whether or not there The Tooth Child nibbling on Mike's finger represents something:

There is a greater symbolism to it. I don’t want to nail down too specifically what it is. But it does—the second on the finger, it does represent both symbolically and sort of literally what The Tooth Child wants, what it is, and what it represents.

On finding an actor to play both young Mike and young Eddie:

And of course, the other huge challenge was finding the kid to play the young Eddie. We tried to find real twins for a long time. And the funny thing about trying to cast real twins is that they come in for the audition and a lot of times, one of them will be good and enthusiastic and the other one would be kind of like, it’s obviously a kid who is just dragged along because his twin wanted to act. And you’re just like, “You poor kid. I know you don’t want to be here."

But Luca [Villacis] who’s also a local Winnipeg kid—we looked in Vancouver, we looked in Toronto. Luca came in and he’s just got this natural, quiet quality, this kind of contained anger and sympathy and vulnerability. And so, we just figured out a way—despite our incredibly tight schedule and budget—to shoot around and have only one kid and have him play both roles. It’s just a matter of planning how to do it right.

On having a lead character, Mike Painter, who you can't entirely trust as a viewer:

That was always part of the concept and DNA of the show. I find it really interesting from a storytelling sense. It makes it more exciting for me as a viewer and as a storyteller when the narrator is unreliable and the storytelling itself is subjective, because it just gives you more colors to paint with as a storyteller.

And the most familiar line from [Kris]’ story and the key line from the Candle Cove puppet show itself is "you have to go inside." And in the puppet show, you have to go inside the cave. And psychologically in our story—Mike Painter—you have to go inside. He has to turn inward and go inside his own mind and his history and confront what’s there. And that’s his internal character journey for the season.

But at the same time, we want to be very careful not to tell the story where it’s all in the main character’s head. I hope that we were pretty clear in the first episode when he encounters the actual figure of the crow’s nest at the end that like, “Okay, there is something going on in the real world. It’s not all in his head.” But at the same time, he can’t quite trust his own perception.

On the potential to do Channel Zero webisodes or short films based on brief creepypastas:

That’s a really good idea, actually, to do short films based on some of the simpler stories that don’t require a complex mythology. And you can also showcase interesting emerging filmmakers to do a short here or there. That’s very cool. I’m going to bring that up with them, actually.

On how the adaptation of Candle Cove changed throughout the development process, dating back to when it was originally going to be a feature film:

This started when my manager approached me and said, “Do you know what a creepypasta is? Do you know what Candle Cove is?” I said, “Yes. Like, let me at it.”

And so, Max Landis had an option to the story and had tried to do it as a movie which had a completely different version of the adaptation—a version in which the story of Candle Cove was totally different and the mythology was totally different. And in doing this version, I really wanted to preserve a sense of mystery but also have the source of Candle Cove and the evil that it represents—the fundamentally human in nature.

And when I say "human in nature," I don’t mean not supernatural, because there is a supernatural [element] in this story. I just mean rooted in human nature. And the distinction was in part that the earlier version—the version before I came on board—was Candle Cove and the forces behind it were in fact benevolent and not evil at all.

And that’s a kind of horror story that always sorts of disappoints me. It lets the air out of the threat if I get to the end of the story and find out that it’s actually a misunderstood benevolent thing. So, I really wanted it to be genuinely terrifying and scary and also rooted in some way in human nature and the ways that it can be malignant.

And in terms of being faithful to a kind of a nightmare logic, by the time that we get to the end of the season, for us to understand who or what the source of Candle Cove was, who or what made Candle Cove the TV show, but also still have questions.

On the romantic chemistry between Mike and Jessica:

Well, I think what I would call it is an emotional affair. And I think they already have it, right? It comes from their childhood romance that was cut short when Mike was sent away and the fact that when you reconnect with somebody from your past who knew you as a child, there’s a kind of innocence that’s recaptured and a sense of hope and potential.

And I think that they probably found a hint of that in each other when they were corresponding. So, for both of them, there’s just a sense of "what might have been?" and reconnecting with the person who knows the most basic, innocent version of you. And I think in another life they would have been together. So, there’s something bittersweet about how they relate to each other now and a kind of compassion that they have for each other and knowledge of their fundamental selves.

On the type of horror fans can expect to experience in the final episodes of the first season:

Yes, a little bit. We’re never going to get crazy gory—certainly not in this first season. It’s a much more suggestive and restrained kind of horror. But I think that in episodes 5 and 6, you will see some imagery that is particularly startling. And by imagery, I don’t necessarily mean gore. I just mean you’re going to see a few things that I think you haven’t quite seen on TV before, particularly in the finale.

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The next episode of Channel Zero: Candle Cove airs on Tuesday, November 8th on Syfy. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for more conference call highlights and updates, and in case you missed it, check out our exclusive interview with showrunner Nick Antosca.