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How the Scare Tactics Reboot Finds That Perfect Balance Between Horror and Comedy
Series Executive Producer Win Rosenfeld tells us just how scared the audience will be while watching Scare Tactics.
If you watched the original Scare Tactics series that first aired on SYFY in the 2000s, then you have a great understanding of just how much fun it is to watch strangers get scared on camera. The exact same can be said for USA Network and Monkeypaw Productions’ Scare Tactics reboot, which premieres on October 4.
Monkeypaw President and Scare Tactics Executive Producer Win Rosenfeld was happy to report to USA Insider that “basically 100 percent of the time, people were really happy that they got scared.”
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Most importantly, he said, that happiness comes from the sheer relief of getting “off of the roller coaster ride and understanding” that the clown chasing after them was part of an elaborate, movie magic-caliber prank. That’s the beauty of Scare Tactics.
Producing "two shows" with Scare Tactics
That shift from one extreme emotion to the other — heart-racing fear to can’t-breathe-style laughter — helped Rosenfeld, EP Jordan Peele, and the rest of the team at Monkeypaw really wrap their heads around the show’s duality.
“We sort of realized early on you’re kind of producing two shows on top of each other,” Rosenfeld explained. “Because the horror part of it is really just for the subject of this [prank], the unknowing hero who’s walking through the scenario. That’s supposed to be horrifying for them. They’ve been dropped into the horror movie.”
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Whether it’s accidentally unearthing a dead body or a baby with devil horns, the hero set up, the tension builds, the scare goes down, and then they’re released from their (momentary) nightmare.
Then, we all laugh.
"We're really writing a comedy"
“For the audience, we’re really writing a comedy,” Rosenfeld added. “And this idea that you’re able to look at and watch this person and enjoy some, I think, benign, non-sadistic [joy over] seeing someone react to these horrible situations, therein was really the balance.”
Rosenfeld refers to it as “a little schadenfreude,” a German word whose English translation essentially means finding joy or amusement in other people’s pain. But schadenfreude, just like Scare Tactics, is harmless — a small thrill for the audience and an adrenaline rush for the “hero” in the horror movie. After all, we love horror movies for the scares, so why wouldn’t we enjoy watching someone else get scared in our place? There’s nothing more fun than being in on the joke.
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“We’re not honestly trying to scare the audience,” Rosenfeld said. “We’re just trying to scare that protagonist, and hopefully you’ll have a good time watching them get scared."
Scare Tactics is scheduled to premiere on USA Network on Friday, October 4 at 10 p.m. ET. The debut episode will also air simultaneously across Bravo, SYFY and E!
