I know that most you out there have heard the statement, “Don’t believe all the hype.” Well in this instance, you need to shy away from that statement altogether, the hype circling SyFy’s Channel Zero is REAL! The horror anthology returned to the SyFy channel on September 20th with season two entitled, No-End House. This installment takes on the journey of a young woman named Margot Sleator (Amy Forsyth) who pays a visit to the No End House. The home features several rooms that prove to be quite disturbing; overall the house is very bizarre. Once Margot returns home she quickly realizes that EVERYTHING has changed.

The first episode will deliver many scares as the main cast of characters enters into this bizarre house, their nightmares will become a blurred reality and may just be the scariest damn thing on television right now.

Continue below to read our interview with showrunner and executive producer Nick Antosca.

 

 

Interview With Nick Antosca

 

iHorror: Hey Nick, how are you?

Nick Antosca: Good, how’s it going?

iH: Good, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I watched the second season [No-End House]

NA: They are totally separate stories obviously, so you can jump into any installments that you want.

iH: I absolutely adored it, the story was so much better than I had anticipated.

NA: We are a little bit of a horror underdog I think. Everyone knows about American Horror Story of course. Candle Cove kind of snuck in under the radar last year. It is a really exciting place to be in, an opportunity to do some interesting horror experiments. We get to make a weird six-hour horror movie, it is kind of a dream of a writer.

iH: It was really unique and it stands out [No-End House] It was different from anything I had ever watched.

NA: That’s fantastic. I think that’s a little bit of a function of the process of calibration that goes into this show. On every level, from writer’s room to production. We have a really great writer’s room that includes Don Mancini who created Child’s Play, veterans of Hannibal including me and Don, Harley Paton who wrote a bunch of the original episodes of Twin Peaks, so it’s a great place there. Every season is directed by a single director and I want every season to be a showcase for an exciting new director from the indie world. Every season is really a collaboration of myself, the writer’s room, and the director and Steven did an amazing job. The one thing I like to do is bring in is interesting artists that I admire anyway. Guy Maddin an indie filmmaker that I love created the teasers for the no-end-house. There is an artist named Sarah Sitkin who is an installation horror artist, she created the sculptures inside the No-End House and she helped us create the flesh memories that people eat. There is really an exciting opportunity to work with interesting people and create something that feels different.

iH: It really shows. I feel sorry for those who have to wait every week to watch the next part, they are going to go insane. I saw that for No-End House the entire thing was from “Creepy Pasta” did you guys add to it or did it all come from CreepyPasta?

NA: We add to it pretty substantially. We try to honor the spirit of the original story, you can find the original story online. The original story, Brian Russell’s story is about a young man that goes into this haunted house, in the original story it is much like a Halloween Horror Nights, Halloween decorations type of Haunted House. There is a cash prize to get out and all that stuff is really cool and exciting, the most interesting thing is the twist at the end of the story. You think you have finally escaped the house to go home and then you start to wonder whether the reality that you perceive to be your life is, in fact, the last room of the house. So, the original story ends there and we basically cover that in the first episode. I then wanted to explore the false reality idea, I have to get back to the real world and how is the house, well what I refer to the “house world.” How is the house using my memories against me, how’s it finding my deepest vulnerabilities and turning them against me? The character of Margo, her father, and her best friend is the stuff that we invented for our version of it. I kind of think of every installment of channel zero like the nightmare that you have after you read the story that its based on. So, these seasons are our take on the original story, they are kind of our fan fiction to the original pasta.

iH: The characters were written very well, they are so likable. I cared about each one, so when something negative would happen it would really have an adverse effect on me. I was emotionally attached to these characters.

NA: That’s great, I am to obviously. One of the very few things that I find difficult about having only six episodes is once we get into shooting and writing, I want to spend even more time with these characters. Another thing is, we block shoot, we do it all at once like a movie and sometimes I get onto set and I am like, “damn, this actor is really good!” I wasn’t sure how good they were going to be before we cast the part and now I wish I could write even more for them. I was really, really happy with our cast this time. Obviously, John Carol Lynch is amazing, and his kind of the mentor figure for the younger cast Amy Forsyth, Aisha Dee, and Jeff Ward all who have landed bigger roles after shooting No-End House were really amazing to work with and I think are going to have long interesting careers.

iH: I do agree with you, I immediately went to IMDB to see what else they have been working on. I think that is what I enjoyed most about this season, was the characters. I know that you only had six episodes and with that being said, I felt that the development was really good.

NA: Great, that is part of the challenge of the show. Obviously, it is a horror show but I wanted it to be a psychological horror show, and a character based horror show so we want to make sure that we had the time to dig into the characters psychology and make them interesting and likable even while we are terrorizing them.

iH: Was it difficult to transition from online to television?

NA: No, not really because part of it has to do with original story, the contest is all Brian Russell and it was built into the story of like the haunted house, and you think you’re out but you’re not. We did change a lot of stuff around but that premise is so rich I think it was easier than coming up with something totally from scratch. The first season was more of a challenge to adapt because Candle Cove is like a message board full of posts that do not have a built-in plot structure, that too was a pleasure to invent from.

iH: I have read that more seasons are already in the works, is this accurate?

DA: Yeah, we already shot the third installment and I am about to get into editing on it and I am writing the fourth installment right now.

iH: That’s awesome! I look forward to seeing the next two seasons when they come out. Thank you so much for speaking with me today.

DA: Cool, thank you very much.

 

Feature Image Credit SyFy

 

-About The Author-

Ryan T. Cusick is a writer for ihorror.com and very much enjoys conversation and writing about anything within the horror genre. Horror first sparked his interest after watching the original, The Amityville Horror when he was the tender age of three. Ryan lives in California with his wife and Twelve-year-old daughter, who is also expressing interest in the horror genre. Ryan recently received his Master’s Degree in Psychology and has aspirations to write a novel. Ryan can be followed on Twitter @Nytmare112