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Scare Tactics' Jordan Peele Explains How to Build Suspense in Horror: "The Jaws Rule"
The Get Out, Us, and Nope director knows a thing or two about keeping audiences on their toes.
USA Network is bringing Scare Tactics back to your screens starting on October 4. And if a reboot of a beloved 2000s prank show wasn't exciting enough, horror maestro Jordan Peele and his team at Monkeypaw Productions are the ones doing the reviving.
Anyone paying attention to the movie landscape in recent years knows that Peele's involvement means one thing: spine-tingling scares are on the way. (It also means to prepare for big laughs, only that's not the subject of today's discussion.)
But what's the key to a good scare? It turns out, it's best if you use your imagination.
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No one wants a disappointing monster
When Peele attended an event at the American Film Institute to discuss his epic directorial debut Get Out, he had some auteur-worthy insight into what makes a good horror movie a good horror movie.
"Terror is the one," Peele said when discussing what kinds of emotions to elicit from an audience. "Look at Blair Witch. That’s one of the scariest films of all time – nothing f***ing happens."
The Blair Witch Project (available to stream on Peacock) is a beloved 1999 found-footage supernatural horror film in which, truly, "nothing f***ing happens" until the final minutes. Simply put, the characters run around in the dark woods, screaming and swearing as they search for a local myth, the Blair Witch, amping up the tension for 82 minutes until the terror snaps into place.
Peele would know a thing or two about building suspense. His aforementioned directorial debut Get Out (2017) as well as its follow-ups Us (2019) and Nope (2022) were lauded by both critics and audiences, catapulting Peele into the stratosphere of horror legends.
"It all feeds to this thing that with horror, the scariest thing that you can put an audience through is to allow their imagination to go crazy," Peele explained. "And in fact you can have a movie where nothing happens if the audience knows we’re headed somewhere and they’re trying to figure out where that is.
"That’s how you get the Rosemary’s Babies, you get Paranormal Activity," he continued.
Those are the titles people talk about to this day when discussing horror that sticks to your bones.
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The same could arguably be said for Peele's own films. Despite being newer additions to the horror zeitgeist than the names Peele dropped, Get Out, Us, and Nope are all tension traps — they keep you guessing, questioning, and unable to look away from the screen even when you feel like you can't stand anymore.
"I think quite often what happens in a horror film — in many horror films that maybe work less for me — is like, 'Oh, the second you see the monster you’re like [sigh]. OK. That’s kind of lamer than I thought the monster was gonna look like. OK, well, alright. We’ll deal with it.'
"But it’s the Jaws rule, right?" he continued. "Don’t show that monster until late."
Scare Tactics is all about the tension: The series will turn unsuspecting individuals into the main characters of their very own horror movies.
This heart-pounding show offers a cinematic approach to the hidden camera concept. Set up by their friends and family, these unwitting participants are put in hilariously twisted scenarios with fully immersive stories that blur the lines of reality, horror, and comedy. As they navigate one unreal decision after another, audiences will laugh, jump, and be left breathless for more.
Scare Tactics will premiere on USA Network Friday, October 4 at 10 p.m. ET. The debut episode will simultaneously air on Bravo, SYFY, and E!.
