We all have that one story. An urban legend that has passed down several narrations, with each telling a little more gruesome, a tad more hair-raising.
When the makers of Syfy’s Channel Zero: No-End House hit upon the retelling of one such tale, they decided to explore the dark recesses of creepypasta micro-fiction — paranormal stories that have travelled the internet in shadows to serve up a fright in the dead of night.
Amy Forsyth who plays Margot, the protagonist who enters a mysterious house with her friends and takes up the challenge to explore the horrors hidden away behind seven doors, admitted that she was drawn to the project despite her own fears.
In an email interview with Gulf News tabloid! Forsyth said: “I’m afraid of horror. I’ve grown to enjoy it but I absolutely cannot watch it alone. Creating it can be a little different.
“Living in a world that is so complicated and unnerving can sometimes force you to find things in yourself that you didn’t know were there. It’s also super fun to run around and scream and cry and be covered in blood and act like an insane person without the judgement, you know?”
Forsyth, though, admitted that she too has found herself “in some deep dark places of the internet reading scary clickbait stories.”
“I think the genius behind creepypasta is that these stories are being written by everyday people. These tales are from the minds of aspiring writers everywhere; how are we to know their inspiration? We’ve all had nightmares that feel very real and I feel as though creepypasta is a place for all curious and creative minds to come together and live in those worlds for a while,” she explained.
Jeff Ward, who plays Margot’s love interest on the show, weighed in to say: “The fact that creepypastas have so many authors from so many different places, it starts to feel like they came from nowhere. Just the dark corners of the internet. It’s also because they’re always written from the vantage point of a real person, not a character. It makes them feel more real.”
Aisha Dee, who plays Margot’s best friend Jules on the show, added: “There’s this element of self-discovery. It’s personal to you because you discovered it and you found it. I personally have gone down the creepypasta rabbit hole and have tried to find stories for reference while we were doing the show. I gave myself nightmares.”
As the six-episode season continues to serve up the jitters, tabloid! spoke with its four lead characters, including actor-director John Carroll Lynch.
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Amy Forsyth
She plays Margot Sleator on the show. The 22-year-old Canadian actress is not new to thrilling activities on screen, having starred in A Christmas Horror Story and the TV series Defiance. She now stars on the Hulu show, The Path.
What first drew you to Channel Zero: No-End House?
It’s rare that you find scripts for television that have fully fleshed out, non-archetypical characters in the pilot episode. Also, plot wise, we experience so much in the first episode. I had to know where these characters were headed in the next five.
Were you one of those kids who trawled the internet in search of terrifying tales?
As a kid I think I spent more time making up creepy stories with my friends. I totally thought I was Nancy Drew and tried, on multiple occasions, to unlock the secret tomb under my school via the hidden entrance in the girl’s bathroom. (Update: there was no secret entrance and definitely no tomb.)
Have you ever (or know someone who has) had a paranormal experience that you couldn’t quite explain?
I think I would have to say that I do. Whenever I start coming to the conclusion that there’s an explanation for everything I have an experience that throws out that whole theory. I have always felt connected to it but also don’t really understand it. When it comes down to it, we are tiny little creatures on a single planet… There is so much that we don’t know and I’m sure there are all kinds of things we do not have the mental capacity to explore or understand.
Are you a fan of the horror genre?
I am slowly learning to love it. Still scared! But I love it. Personally, I like psychological horror and It Comes At Night has to be one of the most beautiful horror or suspense films I’ve seen in a while.
Margot and Jules have endured some horrifying experiences in this house. How emotionally and perhaps physically, exhausting is it on you as an actor to maintain that facade of sheer terror, day after day?
This show is definitely the most taxing job I have ever had. I owe so much of my current mental stability to Aisha Dee (Jules) and Jeff Ward (Seth). Our time in Winnipeg was extremely challenging and would not have been possible without each other and the support of the crew. There were a lot of tears, a lot of hugs, a lot of sweat… some pretty solid iTunes playlists and a deep understand of how everyone’s creative process is different. There were days where we would physically hold each other up and days where we couldn’t talk to each other.
What helped you identify with Margot’s character?
Margot is broken. I think that’s a huge part of what makes her such a beautiful soul. We are starting to see ‘strong independent female characters’ but I think the problem is that people think to be a ‘strong independent female’ you have to kick [butt]. You have to stand up to the patriarchy and be an outspoken feminist and win it all in the end. What makes a woman strong isn’t necessarily all of those things… It’s being a human being. You can be broken and still be strong. Margo is all of those things.
Would you ever do what Margot did — walk into an unknown creepy house, just for a laugh and a few scares?
YES. I’m scared just thinking about it but if I was with the right group of people I would absolutely do it. I would especially jump right in if it was an organised haunted house which, to be fair, the No-End House kind of appears to be. A dilapidated building in the middle of nowhere would take a little more convincing but bring it on.
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Jeff Ward
Best known for starring as Charles Manson in Lifetime’s Manson’s Lost Girls, Ward is also starring in season five of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He plays Seth on the show.
What drew you to the show?
[Writer-producer] Nick Antosca. We did a short a couple years ago called The Girlfriend Game, which was based on one of his short stories. The story is really dark and kind of twisted, but it was so incredibly well written. The feeling it gave me stayed around for a couple days. I knew that I would be down to work on anything he came up with.
Were you one of those kids who trawled the internet to read up on terrifying tales?
I was not. The internet was not around in the same way when I was a kid. I did have a book called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark that I used to read a lot. It had the story with the girl with the ribbon around her neck. It’s a great scary story if you don’t know it. The book was made for kids but it had all these horrifying illustrations that still show up in my nightmares. I feel like that book was my version of creepypastas.
Have you ever (or know someone who has) had an experience that you couldn’t quite explain?
There have been things in my life that I can’t really explain, and I have a really good friend who has some insane stories with some photographs as proof. They are extremely unsettling. One of my favourite movies this year was Ghost Story, and if ghosts are real, I would think that it’s probably similar to that movie. People’s wandering energy left behind.
Are you personally a fan of the horror genre?
I’ve always liked horror, but I’ve gotten a lot more into it since working on this show. I feel like a lot of the most interesting up and coming directors are working in horror now. The last couple years I’ve loved It Follows, Get Out, It Come at Night, and I thought It was really fun too. For my favourites, I would have to go with Psycho or Jaws. Or maybe Alien.
Gritty hard-hitting scripts have attracted you before — be it Manson’s Lost Girls or now Channel Zero. Is playing a dark character more fun for an actor?
Yes. I love playing characters that are muddy in some way. I like characters whose intentions are a bit unknown and complicated. I also love trying to find as much comedy as I can in the darkest places because it makes everything more relatable. We often have senses of humour even in the darkest times and that leads to complicated feelings, which I think are the most common ones.
To portray an evil character such as Charles Manson — how does one even start to prepare to get into the mindset?
First of all, the idea that he’s not a villain in his own mind. In his figurative autobiography, he would be written as the hero. The same with Hitler. From their perspective, these people were out to save the world. So, thinking of Manson the way he thought of himself was the key for me; he was charismatic, selfless, loving and kind. Even though the reality of the story shows that he was none of those things.
Manson is interesting because he might be the most written about psychological case in American history. There was so much information that it was sometimes hard to see the forest through the trees… but, I ended up honing in on what I thought made him tick, and a lot of that was because he was so heavily interviewed over the last 20 years.
He knew the effect he had when he ‘played crazy’, so once he was so infamously in the spotlight, he played it up quite a bit. A lot of people who knew him said he was very different when the cameras are switched off. To think that all of his craziness is put on or a show… I think that makes him a lot more dangerous. Thank God he never got into politics.
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Aisha Dee
The 24-year-old has starred in several TV shows in her short career, including The Saddle Club. She also stars on the hit show called The Bold Type. She plays Jules in No-End House.
Were you one of those kids who has trawled the internet and stumbled across some terrifying tales?
I’m not great at the stuff that millennials do. I don’t really know how to use my phone or computer that well. I get a lot of help from friends, so no, not really. I wouldn’t know how. If I did, I’m sure I would be though.
Do you believe in the paranormal?
Actually on the show, Amy Forsyth and I were sitting in the lounge room of my apartment. The building we were in had hallways that kind of looked like they were from The Shining. It definitely felt very haunted. We were both staying on different floors and I was on the sixth floor, which felt like the sixth room. It was just too much.
We were sitting there one night and my lights were on a dimmer. They were going up and down, up and down. Every time it would happen, we would stop talking and look over at the light switch. And the light switch, the dimmer, wasn’t moving. I remember thinking, ‘That’s in my head, that’s not really happening.’ And Amy said, ‘Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’
We both freaked out, so I’ve had little experiences like that, but that was definitely the most jarring. It was one of our first nights and we were terrified. I’m convinced someone messed with our building and was like ‘We’re gonna mess with these girls.’
Are you a fan of the horror genre?
Yes, I’m a fan of the genre now after doing the show. I didn’t know much about it before, but since then I’ve developed a great appreciation for it and the art form. I think It Follows is pretty scary.
How mentally exhausting is it to maintain that facade of terror, day after day?
The great thing about the show is that it’s not just jump scares all the time. It’s this lingering sense of dread. The universe seemed to be working in our favour. On a day where we were supposed to be in this cul-de-sac and it was meant to be creepy, there was just fog and you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you. The only thing you could see if you looked out in front of you was this one tree that didn’t have any leaves. There was no fog machine. They didn’t plan it this way. It was really visually arresting and did something to us emotionally that made it super easy to stay in it.
Do you think there’s room to explore Jules story further?
Yes, and you will get to see more of what’s going on for Jules and what makes her tick. In episode two, you see her day leading up to going into the house before she meets Margot, which was really amazing from my standpoint to get see that and actually get to live that out. You really get to see into the lives of all of these characters and the reasons why they’re there and exactly what the house is tapping into when it’s tapping into their fears.
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John Carroll Lynch
The actor, who first shot to fame in Fargo and has starred in movies such as Shutter Island, Gone in 60 Seconds, Face/Off, turned director with Lucky, which has opened to rave reviews. Lynch plays John Sleator, Margot’s father, in No-End House.
What was it about this show and John Sleator’s character that attracted you?
I liked the material very much. Nick Antosca is an excellent writer and it was very scary in a sparse and psychological way. I also was drawn by Stephen Piet. He is very talented. I wanted to play the character’s extremes. His love for his daughter and his hunger. It was challenging.
Have you ever come across creepypasta tales before?
I was not familiar with creepy pasta before I read Nick’s teleplays. So, it was more his interpretation and the art direction and the shows visual ambition that drew me. It harkens back to the Rosemary’s Baby era of horror.
What is it about a good old suspense thriller or the unexplained that really pulls you in as an actor, be it Shutter Island, American Horror Story or No-End House?
It was different in each circumstance. But the combination of the writing, the artists involved, and the part were all factors to different degrees in the ones you mentioned. They each had a specific acting challenge too. Good writing is always the start.
Do you believe in the paranormal?
I think all of life is an unexplainable. There’s something very paranormal about donuts in my opinion. Why are they so good? Why aren’t they good for us? See what I mean?
Do you think the horror genre is really coming into its own with shows such as Channel Zero and films such as It and Annabelle?
Horror, like all genres has peaks and valleys. With It, Channel Zero, AHS, and Get Out we are in a peak.
