- Home
- TV
- Fantasy
- Inside modern TV horror with cast and crew behind Carrie, It: Welcome to Derry, and Crystal Lake
❚ We may earn commission from links on this page. Our editorial is always independent (learn more).
Inside modern TV horror with cast and crew behind Carrie, It: Welcome to Derry, and Crystal Lake
Horror isn't just for Halloween or the big screen. Celebrated showrunners Mike Flanagan and Brad Caleb Kane reveal why the genre makes for shockingly good television.
Brooke Palmer/HBO
- Laura Rutkowski
Published: Monday, 26 October 2026 at 5:00 pm
Subscribe to Radio Times: 10 weeks for £10, including the Christmas double issue
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
Ad
I was told explicitly that horror doesn’t work on television when I was pitching The Haunting of Hill House,” Mike Flanagan says of his 2018 Netflix series. “I heard it everywhere.” Thankfully, he didn’t listen. “I was like, ‘I disagree. I think it absolutely can.’” The adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s novel went on to become one of the best horror series of all time, as agreed by critics and viewers alike.
“Horror for long-form is an incredible opportunity,” Flanagan explains. “You have so much more depth available to you for people to invest themselves in the characters.” It does, however, come with its challenges when it’s episodic as opposed to a 90-minute film. “It’s about how you create and sustain tension, and survive the fact that people are watching in their house with a phone in their hand and they’re looking at other things. That’s a depressing way to look at a show, but it’s important.”
Flanagan has become known as a modern master of horror and has an ongoing relationship with the legendary author Stephen King, turning his novels Gerald’s Game (2017), Doctor Sleep (2019) and The Life of Chuck (2024) into films. “There was no interaction with King at all on Gerald’s Game,” says Flanagan, “but I got an email from him afterwards saying that he really liked it, and the email is framed in my office to this day. Now I’m confident, and it’s weird to say, that we’re friends. He’s been my hero since I was a kid, so it’s very surreal.”
Flanagan’s fourth project, and first series with King, who is one of the executive producers, is Prime Video’s Carrie. The novel has already been adapted in film many times, including Brian De Palma’s acclaimed 1976 version starring Sissy Spacek, so why do what’s been done before? “The only reason to do this is to produce a very different version,” says Flanagan. And it’s been a huge hit, with a second series already confirmed.
Carrie is updated from the '70s to the modern day, where the title character (played by Summer H Howell, who was chosen out of more than 1,400 actors who auditioned) has to start attending Ewen High School in Chamberlain, Maine, after her father dies. This means she can no longer be homeschooled by her mother Margaret (a part Flanagan wrote for his frequent collaborator Samantha Sloyan, who plays a much softer version of the character than we’re used to).
Summer H Howell as Carrie White in Prime Video's Carrie. Prime Video
Sloyan says, “In the right hands, the stakes are higher [in TV], because we care more about these people, and as an actor, it’s not a challenge, it’s a privilege to have so much more time with this person. I had the time of my career.”
After a gym class, Carrie gets her first period in the shower. The reaction of the girls in the locker room isn’t to help, but to start filming her on their phones – with Carrie’s telekinetic powers causing the lights to explode.
In the writers’ room, Flanagan invited high schoolers to discuss the realities of their day-to-day lives, including bullying, social media and gun violence. “I was horrified by how public their lives and experiences are. When I was in high school, it was contained to the people in the school. It didn’t follow you home, and it certainly didn’t run the risk of being enshrined permanently digitally online in a way that could follow you your whole life,” he says.
Watch trailer
Flanagan himself was bullied at school. “Being bullied leads to a very understandable hunger for retaliation. It instantaneously tees up this desire to see pain brought to the people who inflict it – I have that to this day.” And yet Flanagan’s message for Carrie is: “Choose kindness.”
“Mike brought it to another level of emotionality with Hill House, and he always leads with the heart in his shows,” says Brad Caleb Kane, showrunner of Sky/Now’s IT: Welcome to Derry, which adapts the interludes of King’s novel IT. Unlike Flanagan, Kane has never met King, although King shared his praise for the first series online: “Welcome to Derry is amazing. First episode is terrifying.”
“King’s grandson Ethan is writing for season 2,” reveals Kane, with filming due to start in 2027. “He’s brilliant and really smart. He’s a chip off the old block. You can see why the Kings are how they are. It’s definitely passed down genetically through generations.”
Kane’s latest project is Sky Atlantic’s Crystal Lake, the prequel to Friday the 13th.“Hopefully I learned by Mike’s example, because I think Crystal Lake’s got a lot of heart, which I think will surprise people.” The gory but emotional series is set in the 1970s before the events of the first film, focusing on the franchise’s original killer – not hockey-masked serial killer Jason, but his mother, Pamela Voorhees, who’s played by Linda Cardellini (Betsy Palmer in the 1980 film). Like Flanagan, Kane’s starting point was “Why?”.
“Viewers do come to prequels sceptically. Why do we need this? There’s got to be a story and there’s got to be an exploration of character. Otherwise there’s no reason to do it.”
Linda Cardellini as Pam Vorhees in Crystal Lake. Matt Infante/PEACOCK
He adds: “There’s so little known about Pam Voorhees. Even though we only meet her very briefly, she looms large over this entire franchise. There were questions – maybe some people will want them answered, maybe some won’t be interested – but I was certainly interested. People have been starved of Friday the 13th content for 17-plus years [2009 film Friday the 13th was the last]. We love these characters so much we want to spend more time with them.”
Cardellini started shooting Crystal Lake within seven days of finishing filming DTF St Louis, which she recently won an Outstanding Supporting Actress Emmy for – at the same ceremony where horror-comedy Widow’s Bay took home 14 awards. “I think horror right now is really at its peak,” she says.
She swapped Georgia for New York for the series, which was filmed in New Jersey. “I had to jump in 100 per cent, which is sometimes better than talking myself out of things,” says Cardellini. Was she worried about the fan reaction? “Oh, definitely. It’s daunting, because people love it so much – some people are gonna really like it while others will not, but that’s normal.”
There are 12 Friday the 13th films, dubbed “exploitation movies” that were made on low budgets, creating cheap thrills, relying on gore and sexual content – something Kane was very mindful of. “They are problematic in a lot of ways. You have to get people invested in the character first, then the gore means something and comes from a place of emotionality – it’s not just exploitative.”
Want to see this content?
This page contains content provided by Google reCAPTCHA. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Google reCAPTCHA may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, choose 'Accept and continue' to allow Google reCAPTCHA and its required purposes.
Accept and continue
The series explores Pam’s background and her experiences protecting herself and Jason from oppressive, patriarchal forces. “Here is a woman who is messed with, gaslit and manipulated, and at a certain point, she simply says, ‘I will not take it any more.’ I like to think of her as a female Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver,” says Kane. “I definitely intended to present Pam as a feminist icon – I think she always was, we just brought it out more. It really is an exploration of justified female rage, and hopefully it’s really cathartic for our audience. I know it was cathartic for our lead.”
“It was different for sure, and it was fun,” says Cardellini. “It’s always at an 11 [with horror]. There’s no real calm. You get to play these wild emotions that go all over the place, and scream, yell, punch, hit and get covered in blood in a contained environment where nobody actually gets hurt. The physical and emotional exhaustion together does feel like a cleanse almost.”
Not only is horror – particularly with heart – working on television, it’s absolutely killing it.
The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.
Ad
Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Authors
Laura Rutkowski
Ad
Ad
Get the Christmas double issue
Too much to watch at Christmas? Let Radio Times do the choosing to find something the whole family will enjoy.
Loading...
Ad
Loading...