The reality competition that scarred a generation with Plexiglas boxes full of bugs is back, and Fox’s twisted reboot, hosted by Johnny Knoxville, comes with a twist: The contestants now live together. “Originally, it was close-ended, so it was three different people and then you see them for an episode and then you peace them out at the end, goodnight them at the end of each episode,” says executive producer Michael Heyerman. “For the storytelling-angle now, you want to make that long-form because it’s such a rich environment to have this social experiment added into these really gnarly, cutting edge crazy challenges. So that when you’re putting people in an environment like that, that is a pressure cooker.”
The series kicked off with 14 players who have been sequestered in a remote Vancouver mansion, Heyerman raves that their new abode comes fully loaded with Fear-worthy features. “We walked in and I was like, ‘This is the best.’ It feels a little bit to me like some of the older ’80s kind of classic horror movies where there is a house…you know what I mean? It felt like it had depth, it felt like it had a real design aesthetic. It was right on the water, surrounded by forest and trees, and there was something a little bit creepy about it.”
Serguei Bachlakov/Fox
The locale also allows for an added layer of treachery, since the housemates will be able to socialize, strategize, and strike secret alliances during their down time. Heyerman admits that they decided to “put them into a house and let’s see what kind of story is [authentically] created out of that environment,” he continues. “And let’s carry it through the season so that viewers get to see somebody’s journey start to finish.”
Unlike another reality competition that makes it look like the players are living and murrrrderring in a Scottish mansion when they’re actually camped out away from set, Fear‘s cast mates “absolutely live in the house,” Heyerman says. “They all live together. Nothing about the house experience is cheated as far as the TV side of it goes.”
After each episode’s first out-there effort, the housemates will decide who to put through an elimination challenge. “In a very simple way, if you do well in the first big challenge, then you get awarded a power,” explains Heyerman. “You see a special preview trailer of what’s to come in that next End Game, which is the elimination sequence.” Based on that info, players can use that information to decide who they want to put through to face elimination. And that, he adds gleefully, is “where the house dynamic comes in.”
Serguei Bachlakov/Fox
While NBC’s 2001 original, which ran for six seasons before a two-year stint on MTV beginning in 2017, was mostly a visceral physical experience, this one is going a little deeper by casting players “with genuine fears,” Heyerman explains. So don’t expect to see them just downing buckets of rotten food or dealing with snakes (however, there are callbacks to classic gross-outs). House’s horrors will often tap into the players’ deep-seated phobias. In fact, “Sealed Fates” dares those with an aversion to tight spaces to be shrink-wrapped together.
And if you think that’s bonkers, buckle up. A future bit, the “Pain Auction,” Heyerman teases, “is one of the most unhinged hours of television I have ever made or seen.” Guess we really don’t have anything to fear but Fear Factor itself.
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