The Terror, TVs Scariest New Series, Isnt Really a Horror Story

Any series with a title like The Terror has certain expectations baked in: dissonant music, jump scares, a monster of the week, perhaps. Remarkably, AMCs new series has none of the above—yet its still perhaps the most terrifying show to air in recent memory. “When you think about good horror, its not fueled by fear,” says David Kajganich, creator of the show, and co-show-runner alongside Soo Hugh. “Really good horror is either fueled by anger, or its fueled by sadness. Once you get fear off the table, you have a better shot at creating it.”

Of course, we shouldnt discount the inherent strangeness of the source material itself. In May of 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin led the H.M.S. Erebus and the H.M.S. Terror—yes, that was really the ships name—on a voyage to discover the Northwest Passage. The ships were last seen in late July, waiting for good conditions to cross into Lancaster Sound. They were never seen again.

The TV series is adapted from Dan Simmonss eponymous 2007 novel, a fictionalized account of the lost expedition. It has been augmented by copious amounts of research, as well as the stunning discoveries of the wrecks of the Erebus and the Terror, which occurred respectively in 2014 and 2016, as writing and production were underway.

“We suddenly had the benefit of all of this information that Dan didnt know when he wrote the book,” Kajganich says. “We were tweaking the scripts down to the day we shot them, to try and keep them as up-to-date with what was being discovered as possible.” Hardcore fans of the book will likely notice a few changes to the story and characters, but the biggest set pieces remain.

So, too, remains the huge cast of characters. Jared Harris,Ciarán Hinds, and Tobias Menzies star as the three captains of the expedition, but as the crew travels further into the Arctic tundra and all sense of hierarchy begins to break down, figures who were all but invisible in earlier episodes begin to come to the forefront. Pulling off this balancing act was a struggle, and getting it done fell to the cast as much as it did the crew.

“In terms of the position that Tobias, Ciarán, and myself were in . . . it was our job to make sure that everyone elses story got protected and served well,” says Harris. “When youre at the end of a 13-hour day and they start to go, Do we really need coverage on so-and-so? We go, Yeah, you do. You have to get that. Were not leaving until you get that.”

Its ultimately this devotion to character, rather than genre, that makes The Terror as affecting as it is. The death of a character wont have any effect if an audience isnt emotionally invested in them, especially given Hugh and Kajganichs approach to cooking up scares.

“Dave and I have an allergy to horror that writes for the audience, where its clear that the setup and unraveling of a horror set piece or moment is clearly just geared towards scaring the audience,” Hugh says. “We wanted to make sure that the source of horror was always subjective, that we were experiencing it from a characters very subjective point of view. And that informed the conversation about genre differently, because we dont walk around thinking that were going to be in a horror movie all the time.”

To drive the point home, Kajganich and Hugh made sure to hire people whose backgrounds werent in horror when assembling their writers room. The films they screened to set a tone for the series ranged from Come and See, a Soviet war drama, to They Shoot Horses, Dont They? When speaking about tonal touchstones, both show-runners refer to science fiction and Westerns as much as—if not more than—horror.

The effect of those diverse influences is tangible throughout the series, as is the fact that much of whats on screen was shot practically. The ships, though confined to sound stages, were fully built out, and caused some havoc on set as they were angled to mimic the effects of the ice on the actual ships. According to Harris, “There were several colorful curse words, because when they tilt the deck, they actually shifted the whole ship, and you just went flying. You couldnt get a good perch, so there were a lot of people face-planting into doors. Sometimes youd be talking to somebody on an incline, and theyd slowly lose their grip, and theyd start sliding totally out of the shot.”

The scenes on the ice, meanwhile, were shot in Croatia and Budapest. Switching countries midway through the shoot was a risk, one further complicated by nature, which doesnt keep to a shooting schedule—but the results speak for themselves. The world of The Terror is entrancing, with horror coaxed out of heightened realism and the slow dissolution of the psyche rather than forced scares and, in Kajganichs words, “a zombie behind every tree.”

“I think people will be surprised by how much they cry and laugh” at The Terror, says Hugh. “They already know theyre going to be scared with a title like The Terror, but whats surprising is how much more emotional the show is beyond the genre tropes.”

“Soo and I just rolled the dice that people were smarter than we give them credit for,” Kajganich adds. “And if you build something that rewards people for watching and thinking closely about whats happening, they will respond to that.”

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