How the “Hysteria!” Showrunners Found the Balance Between Horror and Comedy [Interview]

Writers/Executive producers/Showrunners Matthew Scott Kane (Stitchers) and David Goodman (The Orville) blend horror, humor, and heart in “Hysteria!” Peacock’s coming-of-age series mines its drama and horror from America’s dark history of mass hysteria through the shocking story of the teenage Satanic Panic.

The series follows a group of 1980s high school misfits as they exploit the growing hysteria around teen occult activity, and it boasts a tremendous cast that ensures these characters will worm their way into your heart before the horror ensues.

Garret Dillahunt (The Last House on the Left), Nolan North (Pretty Little Liars), Elijah Richardson (Fantasy Football), Milly Shapiro (Hereditary), Allison Scagliotti (Warehouse 13), and Jessica Treska (Alex & Me) star alongside Bruce Campbell, Julie Bowen, Anna Camp, Emjay Anthony, Chiara Aurelia, Kezii Curtis, and Nikki Hahn.

Bloody Disgusting spoke with Kane and Goodman ahead of the series’ debut, where the pair revealed how the cast came together and the research they put in when writing the series.

“Hysteria!” isn’t easy to categorize in terms of genre because it dabbles in everything with seamless ease. Kane divulges the key to balancing so many genres at once: the characters. He tells Bloody Disgusting, “With this show, we always wanted to make sure that the horror moments felt really earned. There was a quote years back from Edgar Wright talking about Scott Pilgrim, which was, ‘In most musicals, emotions get so high that they have no choice but to break out into song and dance.’ We tried to apply that feeling to this show, which was essentially when fear reaches a point where it’s too high to hold in anymore, it kind of explodes into one of these moments.

“We have to get there by working with the characters, understanding their fears, understanding the kind of hurdles that they’re trying to get over and put behind them, and all of that stuff. So, there was a very tricky balance between characters, horror, and humor in there.”

While the series is pure fiction, pushing into the occult and beyond, Kane and Goodman wanted to root their series in reality just enough to resonate with viewers. “My goal with this was to make everything rhyme with reality, but not necessarily take a figure or someone and base a character off of them directly,“ Kane explains. “I wanted to make sure that there were characters that felt like someone we’ve met in real life before, someone that was in the zeitgeist in the 1980s, without having to be beholden to their life story or anything, have them be our character. I did do a lot of research, too much research, on the Satanic Panic when I was getting into it. It took me two years to even put pen to paper on this show because I was voraciously reading all kinds of books. There’s one called Satanic Panic by Kier-La Janisse, which is incredible. It’s an essay compilation that walks you through all sorts of different avenues of the Satanic Panic, but also when you get into the really deep sort of paranoid side of things, and it’s not a retrospective, it’s like what you were actually reading at the moment.

“I was reading these books called Saturday Morning Mind Control, which are essentially books about how the Smurfs are in league with Satan, they are going to brainwash your children into sleeper cell Satanists, and they are going to rise up against you and kill you. That was the type of literature that I was reading in preparation for this, and it really helped inform the Tracy Whitehead character, as well as the world at large. In fact, on one of our first days on set, I gave Anna Camp a book called Dancing with Demons, which was a book about the devil’s influence over rock and roll music, essentially. It’s like, ‘Hey if you ever need a jolt in the arm to feel more like Tracy, read this book.‘ I think it was very helpful for her.“

Anna Camp is just one of the many recognizable names among the cast. Goodman shares how this talented lineup came together, “I joined the show after Matt had written the pilot script, and everything was in that script. When you’re sending a great script out to actors, actors are smart, and they see that there are a lot of great characters. So, Julie Bowen read the script. This was a real departure for her. This is not Claire Dunphy. This is the dark side of America’s mom. She hooked into that. But she called Matt. I mean, I really think Matt should tell the story of Julie talking to him about this character and where she was going to go.“

“Julie was always number one on our list,“ Kane replies to Goodman. “That’s who we wanted for this part. We sent it to her, crossed our fingers, and then I got an email saying, ‘Julie would like to talk to you tomorrow morning. She’s got a 10-minute window before she has to take her kids to school.’ I’m in Georgia, and she’s in LA. I hopped on this call with her, and I’m so nervous. The first ever TV spec script I wrote in college was a Modern Family script. I’ve literally wanted to work with Julie since college. I get on the phone with her, and one of the first things she says is, ‘Hey, I’m going to do your show. I just wanted to talk to you. I just wanted to make sure you’re cool and that we’re all good, and I’m so excited to do this.‘

“She was thrilled with the idea of being able to play physical. In the pilot episode especially, she gets really physical. Something Julie loved to say to everyone on the set when getting into these scenes was, ‘Don’t worry, I’m sturdy.’ And she would just throw herself into everything. She was so gung-ho about making it look as good and as real as possible. Not only that, but every emotional scene with her nails it in one take. I mean, she was incredible.”

Goodman says of Bruce Campbell’s casting, “Bruce read the script and told us that it’s the words he connected to, the characters that we created for him, in a way. I mean, it was just so exciting to get Bruce Campbell to play this part. We’re such fans of his work. Then, casting the kids. Trying to find kids who are believable as musicians, as metalheads, and that that would start this, down this road of making these bad decisions. And so that was harder, but we found amazing people top to bottom. Then, Anna Camp, who also read the script, I think connected to the fact that this was somewhat of a departure for her as well. She just knocks it out of the park.“

“Hysteria!” is now streaming on Peacock.

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