Nick Antosca (2017)

Thanks!

1) They do change between seasons. Candle Cove was influenced by Stephen King and, of all things, Haneke. Craig and I talked about Haneke, David Lynch, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Days of Heaven, and other things not traditionally considered horror movies. No-End House was influenced by John Carpenter, Solaris, Night of the Living Dead, It Follows.

2) It depends. If you want to break in as a writer, as I did, then first of all, read as much as you can. Not just scripts but plays, novels, short stories. Master storytelling structure. Watch shows and movies that you like and outline them so you understand how the structure works and what you like so much about them. I would study history, philosophy, literature more than film theory. And then write as much as you can, and finish what you write. Block out time every day to write. Focus and eliminate distractions. (Ideally avoid social media. I would quit twitter and IG or at least shut them down for long periods of time if I didn't have a show to promote.)

I recommend the book DEEP WORK by Cal Newport. It was extremely useful to me.

More practically, it helps a lot to be in or around LA, and it's extremely valuable to meet people who will mentor you and help you along the way.

They warned me to watch out for trolls...

But yeah, that's season 4. You guessed it.

Thank you!

I have many dream projects. I can't list them all.

In terms of directors, I love Andrew Dominik. I would love to work with him. Or Trey Shults. Or Melanie Laurent. There are many others.

I'd love to adapt a Thomas Ligotti story one day.

There's a novel called Brand New Cherry Flavor by Todd Grimson that I have always wanted to adapt.

Jeff Russo is a rock star (literally) and I love working with him! I'm so glad he does our music. I tracked him down because I loved his work on Fargo.

My girlfriend has first dibs on marriage, but Tosca Antosca would be a great name. If I ever have a kid, can I name him/her that?

I'm not allowed to say until after NO-END HOUSE airs :)

There will be a definitive announcement after the NEH finale.

Both of those have been working titles...

The third installment is a little different from the first 2 because it's less of a direct adaptation. We optioned a story that we really love and took one aspect of it, and elaborated on it in a pretty surreal way.

It's more like we identify what we love, first. The core thing that makes it strike a nerve with people. For me, for No-End House, it was the idea in Brian Russell's story that when you leave the house and think you're safe, you start to suspect that you're somehow still inside it. That is existential terror to me. A haunted house is scary. A haunted world is scarier. Especially if it can look inside your head and use what's there against you.

It's different for every season, really. Candle Cove we had to build much of the world from the ground up because the original story is in the form of message board posts. There are no rules, really, in terms of what we keep or what we invent.

I look at the stories as an egg or a seed, and something new comes out of them.

Our seasons are kind of like elaborate fanfiction of the original creepypastas.

I would love to do Russian Sleep Experiment!!!

It also depends on whether we can find the author.

Anybody know who the original author of Russian Sleep Experiment is?

I've got a list of other ones I'd love to do as well. We already have the one for the fourth installment. I've written the pilot and we are writing the season now.

Yes. The fourth installment (which I'm writing now) is from a much more obscure creepypasta than Candle Cove or No-End House.

My favorite horror movie changes depending on my mood and the day.

Some classic favorites are THE SHINING and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (both of which I saw as a small child and like imprinted on in some way, like a small animal does to its mother). Some others are LOST HIGHWAY, KRISHA, CACHE and WAIT UNTIL DARK.

I don't think in terms of movies I'd like to direct. It's possible I might direct something eventually, but I think in terms of what I'd like to write and produce. Showrunning is my dream job.

Most enjoyable part of the show for the audience depends on the person... maybe the weird shit like the Tooth Child, maybe the strong directorial voice each season, maybe the characters? Most enjoyable part for me is collaborating with people I admire to put stuff from our nightmares on screen.

I hope Hannibal comes back!

No, that's one of the most exciting things about the show.

Writers, producers, and directors spend so much time trying to get things made. We all have so many ideas we are passionate about that never get to the screen for a million different reasons. So to be able to make a show where every season I get to start fresh and we're basically making a new horror movie every year or so.... it's just really cool and rare and fun. It's daunting to start from scratch creatively every time, but it's very very exciting.

Candle Cove, I wanted a more restrained, eerie feel with NO jump scares. I loved Craig Macneill's film THE BOY and thought he would be perfect. The style matched with the main character's feelings of repression and claustrophobia.

For NEH, I wanted something more kinetic, with a roving camera and an immersive sense of paranoia. Steven Piet directed every episode of the season, and he is amazing. His film Uncle John is the reason I went after him.

I am writing some features, yes. I haven't taken any assignment work since The Forest and Friday the 13th because I've been too swamped with TV, where you never get a chance to breathe when a show is in prep, production, or post. It's tough to get movies made now, though. I've been creatively happy in TV over the last couple years.

Editing season 1 at the same time. No sleep indeed.

Thanks! That was fun. I literally got to write one draft and then Paramount regime changed and they moved on. We hadn't talked about cast much.

The hope was to make an F13 movie where the characters were fun to hang out with, and had real hopes and dreams and goals and quirks, like Dazed and Confused.

And then Jason shows up and shreds them.

I love all my children!

I would say we challenge ourselves to do something different every season, and of course we always want to up our game and make each season scarier/ show the audience something they haven't seen before. I am incredibly proud of both seasons.

Syfy has been awesome. I took the show to them because of a conversation I had with Bill McGoldrick at Syfy after we pitched it. We could have taken it to several other networks, but I felt like Syfy was most likely to make it and they understood the vision for the show.

Their notes are consistently smart. I usually agree with them, and on the rare occasions I don't, I explain why and they listen. Which is a healthy and ideal working relationship with a network.

In Candle Cove, they were very uneasy at first with Mike dying at the end. They didn't want us to do that. But I explained why he had to, and that it was a heroic death, and they agreed and let us do it.

They gave a lot of really thoughtful, smart notes on No-End House and were particularly great partners on this season.