Interviews
The New ‘Are You Afraid of the Dark’ Cast Talks Reviving The Midnight Society and the Show’s Iconic Sets
Are you afraid of the dark? You might be after watching Nickelodeon’s mini-series reboot of their classic horror anthology series. Are You Afraid of the Dark? (read our review) is the return of The Midnight Society, a group of teenagers who are fanatical horror fans, who sneak out in the middle of the night, venture into the woods, and try to scare the hell out of each other with their original tales of terror.
The new series throws The Midnight Society into a real-life nightmare, as a horrifying carnival comes to town that eerily mirrors a tale recently told around their campfire. It’s a nostalgic trip for fans of the series, but for the show’s young cast it’s a very different experience. After all, they weren’t even born yet when the original Are You Afraid of the Dark? went off the air!
“I actually didn’t know it existed until I got the role,” Jeremy Ray Taylor told Bloody-Disgusting in a recent interview. “And a bunch of my family was like ‘Wow, that’s a thing now! They’re bringing it back!’”
“We weren’t around when it was originally airing but we’ve heard a lot about it from people we’ve told about the show, and gotten to see a couple of clips ourselves,” Sam Ashe Arnold confirms, but he assures us that extensive research wasn’t necessary for his role. “This show is certainly not a carbon copy of the last one. I don’t find that we’re trying to replicate it, but that didn’t make me want to stay away from the other show completely. So I did see other scenes. I did capture the feeling of the old show. And I think that this one does justice to everything everyone loved about that.”
Sam Ashe Arnold plays Gavin, the most outwardly “coolest socially” member of the new Midnight Society. Jeremy Ray Taylor plays Graham Raimi, who is “definitely germaphobe, and that’s an understatement. I mean, he is scared of absolutely everything. Germs especially. And he’s a vintage horror fan and a wannabe composer, so yeah. He is lot of depth. In the end he’ll always come [through] for his friends.”
In addition to clips from Are You Afraid of the Dark?, the mini-series’ writer/producer BenDavid Grabinski gave the cast homework to prepare them for their geeky characters.
Photo Credit: Lucas Rossi
“BenDavid, he is a horror fanatic just like Graham. So he gave us a ton of movies to watch,” Taylor explains. “That was the first time I ever watched The Goonies. We watched some cult classics, The Blair Witch Project and stuff, just to get in the idea of the horror genre.”
Their characters may be horror experts, but the three-episode structure of the mini-series means that not every member of The Midnight Society gets to tell their own scary story this time around. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have strong opinions.
“There’s a lot of debate about what makes a good story, how to classify a story, all things stories,” Arnold says.
“Yeah, like what’s scary? What’s horror and what’s thriller? Stuff like that,” Taylor confirms, without giving away how that time-honored debate turns out. “I think it’s left open-ended a little bit because it’s a constant debate throughout the whole entire show.”
But although they don’t all get to tell a terrifying tale, they do all get to sit around the iconic campfire that Are You Afraid of the Dark fans know and love. And if you’re in Vancouver, you might even be able to find the site for yourself.
“We were actually in Vancouver and it wasn’t a set,” Taylor reveals. “It was actually in the woods. There were a few fake trees but it was mostly real.”
“They have this really cool location by a rock face. It’s all very cinematic. They blow smoke throughout the woods and shine moonlight through it. It just looks really cool,” Arnold adds.
The campfire itself was a little more complicated, according to Taylor.
“There are no fires allowed in Vancouver [forests] except propane fires, so [the campfire] was propane, and we had the dust that you throw in the fire. It was almost really surreal to be part of such an iconic group and be under the label of The Midnight Society,” Taylor says.
Sadly, it turns out that the dust that The Midnight Society throw on their fire, creating a mini-fireball for dramatic effect… is just sand.
“I think it’s just sand, actually,” Taylor confesses. “Yeah, and they do a giant blow through the propane and just [fireball noise].”
But that’s not the only memorable locale The Midnight Society travels to in the new mini-series. The “Carnival of Doom” is in town, and according to the cast, it was an amazing, fully functioning practical set.
“So the Carnival of Doom is from Rachel’s story, actually. She tells [it] and then a few things start to happen and we realize that her story is very similar to what happens in real life,” Taylor explains. “Through that carnival, our characters get to face our biggest fears. Like Graham’s biggest fear is heights, so you’ll see a little bit of that. So you’ll see them definitely get challenged throughout the carnival. So it’s a very fun adventure.”
“The carnival is an achievement in set design by itself,” Arnold adds. “It’s really wonderful to be in and to see through a lens. They were able to use these great sweeping wide shots, one takes, and aerial shots because of how fleshed out the carnival was. There was nothing hidden. There were no fake one-sided buildings. You could walk through it and you could show everything.”
“Yeah, and all the rides were real as well,” Taylor explains. “It was like a real carnival. They really brought it with that.”
You can meet this new Midnight Society for yourself right now! The first episode of the Are You Afraid of the Dark mini-series is on YouTube right now (watch below), with additional installments running on Nickelodeon throughout the month.
Only one episode remains in Season 3 of “Chucky,” and what a bloody road it’s been so far, especially for actor Devon Sawa. The actor has now officially died twice on screen this season, pulling double duty as President James Collins and body double Randall Jenkins.
If you thought Chucky’s ruthless eye-gouging of the President was bloody, this week’s Episode 7 traps Randall Jenkins in an elevator that feels straight out of an iconic horror classic.
Bloody Disgusting spoke with series creator Don Mancini and actor Devon Sawa about that ultra-bloody death sequence and how the actor inspires Mancini’s writing on the series.
Mancini explains, “Devon’s a bit of a muse. Idle Hands and Final Destination is where my Devon Sawa fandom started, like a lot of people; although yours may have started with Casper. I was a bit too old for that. But it’s really just about how I love writing for actors that I respect and then know. So, it’s like having worked with Devon for three years now, I’m just always thinking, ‘Oh, what would be a fun thing to throw his way that would be unexpected and different that he hasn’t done?’ That’s really what motivates me.”
For Sawa, “Chucky“ is an actor’s dream in that the series gives him not one but multiple roles to sink his teeth into, often within the same season. But the actor is also a huge horror fan, and Season 3: Part 2 gives him the opportunity to pay homage to a classic: Kubrick’s The Shining.
CHUCKY — “There Will Be Blood” Episode 307 — Pictured in this screengrab: (l-r) Devon Sawa as President James Collins, K.C. Collins as Coop — (Photo by: SYFY)
“Collectively, it’s just amazing to put on the different outfits, to do the hair differently, to get different types of dialogue,“ Sawa says of working on the series. “The elevator scene, it’s like being a kid again. I was up to my eyeballs in blood, and it felt very Kubrick. Everybody there was having such a good time, and we were all doing this cool horror stuff, and it felt amazing. It really was a good day.”
Sawa elaborates on being submerged in so much blood, “It was uncomfortable, cold, and sticky, and it got in my ears and my nose. But it was well worth it. I didn’t complain once. I was like, ‘This is why I do what I do, to do scenes like this,‘ the scenes that I grew up watching on VHS cassette, and now we’re doing it in HD, and it’s all so cool.“
It’s always the characters and the actors behind them that matter most to Mancini, even when he delights in coming up with inventive kills and incorporating horror references. And he’s killed Devon Sawa’s characters often. Could future seasons top the record of on-screen Sawa deaths?
“Well, I guess we did it twice in season one and once in season two,“ Mancini counts. “So yeah, I guess I would have to up the ante next season. I’ll really be juggling a lot of falls. But I think it’s hopefully as much about quality as quantity. I want to give him a good role that he’s going to enjoy sinking his teeth into as an actor. It’s not just about the deaths.”
Sawa adds, “Don’s never really talked about how many times could we kill you. He’s always talking about, ‘How can I make this death better,’ and that’s what I think excites him is how he can top each death. The electricity, to me blowing up to, obviously in this season, the eyes and with the elevator, which was my favorite one to shoot. So if it goes on, we’ll see if he could top the deaths.”
CHUCKY — “Death Becomes Her” Episode 305 — Pictured in this screengrab: Devon Sawa as James Collins — (Photo by: SYFY)
The actor has played a handful of distinctly different characters since the series launch, each one meeting a grisly end thanks to Chucky. And Season 3 gave Sawa his favorite characters yet.
“I would say the second one was a lot of fun to shoot,“ the actor says of Randall Jenkins. “The President was great. I liked playing the President. He was the most grounded, I hope, of all the characters. I did like playing him a lot.” Mancini adds, “He’s grounded, but he’s also really traumatized, and I thought you did that really well, too.”
The series creator also reveals a surprise correlation between President James Collins’ character arc and a ’90s horror favorite.
“I saw Devon’s role as the president in Season 3; he’s very Kennedy-esque,“ Mancini explains. “But then given the supernatural plot turns that happen, to me, the analogy is Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, the character that is seeing these weird little things happening around the house that is starting to screw with his sanity and he starts to insist, ‘I’m seeing a ghost,‘ and his spouse thinks he’s nuts. So I always like that. That’s Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, which is a movie I love.”
The finale of “Chucky” Season 3: Part 2 airs Wednesday, May 1 on USA & SYFY.
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