While shooting their eleventh installment at the Mina Dos Estrellas mine in Michoacán , Mexico , in 2001 , the yield squad behind the MTV realness seriesFearencountered a very strange situation . The show , which dangle five or six dissident into mysterious location reputed to be haunted and dared them to spend time alone in the decrepit buildings , awarded a cash prize of $ 5000 to each person who successfully present their anxiousness without fleeing . Of the radical , at least a fistful would commonly be impart at the end of each show to collect their reward .
The mine was different . It was said to be patrolled by the spirits of miners who died while on obligation , as well as the Nahual , a werewolf - esque creature . The gumption of foreboding was too much to take . On the first night of shooting , all six contestants quit .
“ alternatively of being there two weeks to dissipate , we were there a calendar month , ” Alissa Phillips , a production familiar - twist - associate producer on the series , tells Mental Floss . “ We had to fell an entirely newfangled cast in to see if they could manage it . ”
Fear , which ran for 16 episodes from 2000 to 2002 , remains an unusual person in the reality genre . Unlike most docudrama , there was no camera crew in sight . The cast wore chest - mounted cameras and carried hand-held recording equipment to fire a feeling of real closing off . Nor did the output orchestrate hokey scare — apparitions , fleeting figures in the woods — like a modern haunted sign . Instead , the contestants were largely left alone to get lose in their own heads , the weight of the violent , sometimes - murderous localisation take over down on them as they posture in pitch - black region thought to have paranormal occupations , sometimes for minute . Some contestant successfully made it through to the end ; others quit in their hotel room , before they had even arrive at the land site .
For MTV , it was a passing from their typical realism fare likeThe Real World . For producers , it was an opportunity to craft a “ real ” horror movie , get the genuine reactions of hysterical , sobbing young adult who jumped at the sound of every wind blow and creaky floorboard . To get a gumption of what it claim to craft this existent - lifeParanormal activeness , Mental Floss spoke with members of the hurl and crew . Here ’s what they call back about the serial , its challenges , and some truly terrific moments they still ca n’t quite explain .
I: FEAR ITSELF
In 1999 , MTV was riding a wave of inexpensive world programming that brought disparate personalities together and forced them to either live together ( The Real World ) or compete against one another ( Road Rules ) . match with the euphony television countdown seriesTotal Request Live , it remained a terminus channel with a clear identity for untested adults .
That blade was put to use by save and producing partners Martin Kunert and Eric Manes , who conceived of a feature motion-picture show pitching about an MTV - esque realism show that goes awry . Kunert and Manes began grass the feature around town . While they finally found interest , it was n’t in quite the way they expected .
Martin Kunert ( Co - Creator , Co - Executive Producer):We had just done a moving picture calledCampfire Talesand decided doing a pseudo - documentary horror picture would be our next idea . We basically conceive of a pic calledThe Legend of Hell Houseand aggregate it withThe Real World . It was calledDare .
Beau Flynn ( Executive Producer):I was obsessed withIn Search Of , the old Leonard Nimoy show , and I was call back of rebooting it . I fuse the two estimation to createFearand took it to Dawn Olmstead , who was one of my good friends from college .
Dawn Olmstead ( Executive Producer):He sent over the feature of speech idea . Beau and I discourse what would bump if we essentially did it for real .
Kunert : The tar was about these kids that go to [ the allegedly ghost - occupied swamp area]Honey Islandin Louisiana . And it turn out the position really is haunted and sh*t come about for literal .
Eric Manes ( Co - Creator , Co - Executive Producer):Basically , they said , “ or else of work this movie , why not actually make the show within the movie ? ”
Alissa Phillips ( Associate Producer):I was working for Beau as his assistant at the clip . Dawn had recently joined the company and had worked at MTV . They stop up selling it there as a show .
Olmstead : MTV think it was a nerveless idea , but I call up there was misgiving over whether we could pull it off and be scary . I fly with an administrator to a run - through for the pilot light and he told me on the plane , “ Listen , no one is going to die . What are we in reality shoot ? ”
Phillips : In those days , realism was really still defined asRoad RulesandThe Real Worldand that was it .
Jonas Larsen ( Segment Producer):It was a disturbed idea . How were we going to execute this ? How were we going to create a sense of these hoi polloi actually being alone ?
Colton : For me , haunted emplacement shows had never quite work . It was for the same reason hoi polloi generally do n’t put magic in moving-picture show . Audiences mean , " Oh , it ’s rig . " Same with ghost stories . How do we bed the positioning is haunt ?
Olmstead : My thought was , call up how scared you get watching a horror movie and witness someone going down into a cellar ? The scariest portion are watching people nervously going somewhere .
With the premise nail down , producers localize about creating an environment unparalleled in television receiver — set apart the cast from the output and allowing stationary mounted cameras in the position and on the cast ’s bodies to cover the activity .
Kunert : The idea was to not have any interaction with the production . That was the way of life to get literal fearfulness . They felt all stranded and alone .
Olmstead : The principal problem was : it ’s not going to be scary with producer around . We used every approximation and innovation we could to make them finger like they were alone and vacate .
Luis Barreto ( Director):You ca n’t put the camera on the foreland . It locomote too much . It had to be more of a shoulder joint or body mount .
Cassidy : They came up with the idea of the great unwashed self - filming . It was a vest - wear out tv camera on a gooseneck weapon that extend out a little turn then pointed back to the face and shoulder for a medium close - up .
Phillips : Beau ’s troupe producedRequiem for a Dream[in 2000 ] , where the crew had built camera rigs that Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly wore for certain shots . We used the same canonic rigs .
Flynn : We had a immense camera tackle mount up on their chests for three or four shots . We did that , but with a lip rouge cam .
Kunert : The vest cams did n’t add up fromRequiem from a Dream . We designed and built originals for get tightlipped ups when people were alone .
Colton : We called it the Clam Cam . It was basically a harness that had arms with a camera climb up on the end . Their body was like the tripod . When they ran , you would get this incredible downhearted - angle shot on their facial expression . Because they were infrared , it did n’t matter how drab it was .
Cassidy : The effect on concealment is disorientate and scary . The mortal is still but the background propel around them . It reenforce the fact they were in this space by themselves .
Colton : The Clam Cams were used for dramatic emphasis . When contestants freaked out , we go to the Clam Cam for that in - your - faceExorcistmoment .
Cassidy : It changed the experience . We bugger off material human behavior . It was n’t mediate by the presence of a camera crew . The material was very compelling , nervous , and striking .
Colton : We also used it to establish suspense . If someone is going down the stairs , we go to a close - up . Now the audience ca n’t see what they see .
Colton : We also used it as a flushed herring . Say someone was go down step : We ’d go to the Clam Cam and the consultation would go , “ Oh , something scarey is about to happen . ” But then nothing fall out . It gave the audience a false sense of security system .
Flynn : The authoritative part of the pitch [ to MTV ] was that fear live in the eye , and you have to be certain to catch that .
Colton : In a couple of case the tv camera would get knocked off - kilter if someone ran into something . One meter one-half of someone ’s nerve was showing , and that was actually really coolheaded .
Olmstead : It was a happy chance event . If they started run and bumped into a paries , the photographic camera would move and you ’d see a shoulder and hear someone breathing . They were too scared to adjust the television camera , nor did we have access to say , “ We ca n’t see you . ” But when we visit the footage , it was scarier than if we had assure their nerve .
Colton : As the watcher , your back is to what ’s coming around the nook . That ’s the basis of all heavy horror photographic film . It ’s what the filmmaker chooses not to show you that ’s scary .
To populateFear , MTV turned to a reality TV staple : a revolving door of untested , attractive 20 - somethings orbiting Los Angeles , New York , and prize casting hot spot around the commonwealth .
Barreto : MTV had a whole casting section . Fearwasn’t as cloggy - duty as a show likeRoad Rulesthat had six weeks of interviews . It was much more truncated . We talked to them , rule out what they were about . Some people come in with some preconceived ideas . Some were skeptics .
Olmstead : We were going for aBreakfast Clubmix . Six masses trapped in a construction . How would you project it as a motion-picture show ? There ’s a prom fagot , a dweeb .
Flynn : Breakfast Clubis exactly right . I grew up on John Hughes pic . How do we put together a grouping of people that will be interesting ?
Kunert : We wanted people who had some type of self-aggrandising emotional issue in their life that was moil to the surface . Some big decision they had to make .
head of hair : hoi polloi who are looking for something emotionally are open to thing . Maybe things in their life are n’t blend according to plan . Maybe they ’re in a fighting with their parent . That just gave us stuff to mold with .
Phillips : We needed tyke who were as ruffianly as possible . If someone in an audition was saying , “ I ’m spiritual , I trust in the paranormal , ” it was like , “ Ohhhh , probably not . ” We were looking for people who were misanthropical , who would look into the camera and say , “ I require the money . You ’re not going to scare me . ” Because people would just quit the first night .
Steven Breier ( Contestant , “ West Virginia Penitentiary , ” Episode One):They asked a bunch of weird inquiry . Are you afraid of spiders ? Are you frightened of the wickedness ?
Jason Harbison ( Contestant , “ Mina Dos Estrellas , ” Episode 12):They were interview people in Birmingham , Alabama , with one group of six people per board . Me and my crony both live on . They asked question . I remember being asked why we desire to be on the show . One guy gave some bullsh*t solvent like he wanted to study the scientific discipline of ghosts . The interviewer got to me and I pronounce , “ I just require to be on TV and meet some hot chicks . ”
Cassidy : They did a honorable task of putting together people who were contrast types . One was athletic , one was skeptical of ghosts , another was a can - do guy . It was a passably good interbreeding - incision of people .
Flynn : One affair we learned is that in utmost situation , when you ’re feeling vulnerable and afraid , it ’s very bonding . We drop all the presentational qualities that we have .
Barreto : We told them , “ Be ready to go . lend one purse . Do n’t bestow a telephone . Tell your friends they wo n’t get a line from you for five days . ” They ’d get take somewhere , get blindfold , go to a hotel room with no television , and left alone for 48 hours . We treated them like prisoner .
Harbison : I got to Mexico City and the driver was kinda hot . I guess that part does n’t matter . But she was kind of cold and callous toward me and would n’t make conversation . I eventually asked her about it and she suppose , " Well , they asked me to be like that . "
Olmstead : Sometimes they ’d be fly to one city but then driven to another . They had no communication with the outside world . We were trying to de - excite them .
Kunert : If they feel safe , they ’re not go to react . We tender them in the hotel way . They ’d go in front of the cameras and say , “ This is not what I expect . ”
Manes : They had a VCR in the hotel elbow room or safe sign , but they could only watch horror films .
Harbison : Poltergeistwas one . The Shiningwas another .
Barreto : Friday night , someone shows up . They get blindfolded . No one tells them where they ’re going . Once you get to the safe house , honorable luck .
Phillips : We put bags over their heads . That was not fake . They never knew where they were going . One girl vomited in her udder . I was like , “ Is this serious ? ”
Olmstead : She was n’t the only one who spue .
Phillips : We left one kidskin with a purse over his head for hours . We did some evil things .
Breier : Someone ignite us up and put a slip over my nous and walked me out to a auto . I could tell other people were in the gondola . We motor around for about an minute . When we get under one’s skin out , it was like 3:30 in the good morning . They tell us to put our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us .
Flynn : We did n’t want them talk or plan beforehand . We want all of them to meet for the first time .
Manes : Sometimes people would get there and say , “ It ’s MTV , nothing is going to chance . ” We made it clean that MTV is not there .
Breier : I intend , well , while this is shivery , and maybe you might get hurt tripping in the darkness , it ’s not a place that will make grave harm .
Manes : By the clock time participants actually end up walk into the positioning , they were already so disposed to be frightened , so concerned about where they were , that even if they thought it was a gimmick when they auditioned , they were work up by the time we finish with them in the prep phase .
Barreto : I’m an onetime - school world producer . I believe there ’s a unconscious process to getting masses ready to be on circle . It ’s a holistic thing . The whole advance has to work . player have to come quick to make for … They were prim up already . You just had to keep satisfy the expectations of what they ’re about to go through .
Major Dodge ( Contestant , “ Mina Dos Estrellas , ” Episode 12):They’d heap with your slumber . You ’d be up all twenty-four hours and awake at night . I knew they were doing sure things to get us to break mentally a short bit .
Breier : One protester … had a lilliputian pagan altar set up and said she practiced witchery . Before we even started , she left .
Colton : It ’s almost like Equus caballus racing . You put the gymnastic horse in the start gate and it ’s their instinct to run but they ca n’t . When you ring the bell , the horse take on off . That ’s what the contestants were .
Flynn : Because of my passion forIn Search Of , I wanted to civilize people about these places . All of that stuff was real . We ’d research it and comprise it into the episode . It was a dandy way to tell the backstory , to mix it with what the mod college kids were experience .
Colton : We had a documentary on top of the show that explained why the location was haunted . It communicated the account to dissident . We watch it visually and they listen it verbally . It was also to trade the audience — like , OK , there could really be some paranormal activity in this localisation .
Cassidy : They’d be severalise of the haunted spot .
Breier : You vex your head satisfy with stuff before you even got there .
Colton : We might exaggerate the story to build up some suspense .
mane : We also had an insurance policy release . or else of saying something like , " Hey , we do n’t take responsibleness if something come about , ” it would say , “ In case you get dismembered or dim here … ” We built up the feeling of danger .
Even with a mold on edge , no one at MTV was altogether convinced a show about dissident grappling with their own internal anxieties could be effectively communicate on television .
Olmstead : I think there was some trepidation about , could we capture scariness on TV when we have sex no one would die ? Could we capture what it feels like to be scared out of your wit at a haunted place ? Would it be too shuddery and multitude would discontinue in five minute ? We kept adjust as we move along .
Manes : We started work on [ the characteristic film idea for]DarebeforeThe Blair Witch Project , but their [ success ] definitely help us out .
Olmstead : I thinkBlair Witchinfluenced people who save aboutFear , but it was n’t likeBlair Witchinspired it . What I do think occur isBlair Witchhelped the mesh sense positive that they would chance an consultation for it .
Manes : I think part of what helped the show was that the connection expect it to be a complete disaster . They left us alone . No one at MTV wanted to get blamed for it , and so they allowed us to get crazy .
II: SCREAM FACTORY
BeforeFearwent to series , the connection regularize a pilot that take place in West Virginia State Penitentiary , a notoriously brutal facility located in Moundsville that had beenopenfrom 1876 to 1995 and was said to be dwell by the spirits of the estimated100 inmateswho had met violent ends via carrying into action . The object glass was childlike : take the air into the darkest recesses of the building and see if you had the nerve to detain put .
Phillips : Martin and Eric wanted to go to the prison first . They really honed in on it . It was included in the original slant papers .
Flynn : There was a pot of history there . When the prison was built , it was on an Amerindic burial ground . They flattened the land and put the prison on top of it . in the end , it was shut down . There was more expiry and murder per square metrical foot there than anywhere . It was a lot of bad mojo .
Olmstead : It was a capital story . The idea of putting young adult and dropping them off after midnight in a prison seemed really frightening . The reason we played with the estimate of mental institutions and prison house was because we knew the estimation that , if you believed in ghosts , and someone died while being incarcerated , you could be trap there everlastingly .
Larsen : Martin , [ conductor ] George [ Verschoor ] , and I went to reconnoiter it and start the documentary mental process . We decided , “ You know what , let ’s see if we can get some local kid and see what their reaction is . ” Have them come and hang out with us at the prison house and test it out . There was a place in the basement where , during a riot , some convict had obliterate some other inmates , decollate them , and played association football with their point . I told the tike , “ Here ’s what you need to do . Go into the way with a video tv camera and drop 15 proceedings by yourself . ” I think we put up a couple hundred bucks .
What he did n’t bed was that [ we had someone ] hiding in a hallway guide down to the way with a little metal strand . He jingled it and the kid freaked out and came scream out of the room . I tell , “ take heed , we ’ll give you $ 500 to go back into the way . ” Then it was $ 1000 . He would n’t . That ’s when we looked at each other and knew we had a show . It ’s all in your headspring . It does n’t take much to tap into that veneration .
Cassidy : Frankly , the space even in the footage was scary and intimidating . It was a real penitential and material violence occurred within its wall .
Phillips : It was terrifying for the crew . No one wanted to go to the privy alone . Actually , no one did in any location .
Cassidy : The narrative twist imposed was that once they introduce the pen and were given a dwelling alkali in the prison chapel , they could kind of relax and let the cat out of the bag to one another . In the room , there was a computer with instructions on what they had to do next .
Phillips : On a fender , you do n’t really recognise what you ’re doing . I was not sure it was going to exercise — kids with cameras in an enormous location . Luckily , we get incredible footage .
Kunert : The Sugar Shack was shivery .
Cassidy : That was the inmate rec pith . There was a lot of graffiti on the walls . It was a skittish place .
Breier : That was the worst for me . It ’s a heavy , open room with nothing in it , just column . People could be hide in there . I did n’t know if there were actors quick to jump out out and scare us .
mane : That was authentically chilling . I in person did not want to go in there . I felt an awful , evil presence . My soundbox and someone were secernate me to get the hell out .
Phillips : The crew did not want to manipulate the Sugar Shack alone . It was an intense room , freezing and dark .
Cassidy : For the docudrama material , a production crew traveled there and interviewed inmate who spend yr in Moundsville . citizenry were telling me the most dire moments of the show were grow interviews from some of those cat and get a line account of what had gone on in the old daytime . It was chilling .
Flynn : I saw weewee shooting up from the urinal . I sleep together Dawn had a similar experience .
Olmstead : I went down a hallway there and there was no extend water supply in the topographic point . I get into a elbow room and there is water and sludge drip out of stones in the walls . I grabbed a piece of theme and drew a crossbreed on it .
Phillips : I did a dry campaign with a walkie - talking picture and headset and no torch to test the focal point we would give them . It ’s sales pitch - black and I ’m being read the same instructions the kid would get the next day . So someone enounce , “ rise up the ladder in front of you . ” I dumbfound to the top and could n’t see anything . There is no light at all . Now I hear , “ Walk three paces ahead ” in my spike . So I was standing there and heard someone say , “ No , ” but not in my ear . I vividly retrieve someone pronounce no . So I relay back , " I ’m not doing this . ”
The next sidereal day , someone from the crew that was rigging said , “ Thank god you did n’t do that . ” It wrench out there was an tremendous trap threshold in that part of the prison , where they put hay down for horse . It was 10 or 15 feet wide . If I ’d proceeded three feet , I ’d have shine to my dying .
Cassidy : There was a young woman in the pilot program who was very sore to psychic thing . She was open to the experience and was having some intense experience and ultimately decided it was n’t healthy for her to continue order herself in those places .
Flynn : Whether you believe in touch or spirit or not , one thing is undeniable and that ’s the energy . Just like you may walk into someone ’s house and feel good energy , there ’s bad energy . walk into that prison was terrorize . We shot for one dark there . We did n’t even need two nights .
Olmstead : After germinate , we move to a diner … A phone pole crack in one-half , this giant telephone pole , and almost defeat all of us in the van . It made the local news . This was after the first dark of motion-picture photography .
Flynn : It come out of nowhere . The illumination went out in the Denny ’s and the celestial pole just fell down .
Larsen : Eric and I were in one car and they were in the other , perish each other . There were fire truck and mass in hazmat suit . The guy directing traffic just left and we kept going . law got really mad at us for driving through a detour .
Flynn : When I got back from Moundsville , my house had been infested with rats . That was odd and terrific .
Despite the near - fatalities , the crew got what it needed . Of the six contestants recruit for the pilot , three continue . To finish the challenge , a dissenter named Ryan successfully overstretch off a tarpaulin from the prison ’s galvanizing chair . Though it was just a cloth on top of a seat , his understanding cementedFearas a show where the simplest daring proved most efficacious .
Larsen : We used the genuine galvanising chair from the showing at the prison house .
Cassidy : The galvanic chair chemical reaction was correct on the edge of entire fear , but also kind of very big . Like he enjoyed it but was also genuinely terrified .
Phillips : What we learned is that it was better to give them real goals than to just sit there and get terrify . It give them a sense of purpose and stabilized them a little fleck . Like , “ Document this , find this . ” Otherwise they would often just chuck up the sponge .
Kunert : MTV did a test screening and their method was , if someone in the hearing says , “ I ’ve seen something like this before , ” it would never get on the air . Or , “ I could see this on another internet , ” that would n’t get on air , either . MTV wanted initiation .
They dumbfound it . Debuting September 21 , 2000,Fear(sometimes styled asMTV ’s Fear)resonatedwith audience in a post - Blair Witchculture , living vicariously through the chafe nerves of contestants . manufacturer were already scouting succeeding locations .
Phillips : We had construct for different experiences . We wanted an old hotel so we did [ Poconos resort ] Buck Hill Inn . That was like , where can we findThe Shining ? We wanted a former sanitarium , so we regain Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts . We conceived of an experience and then sought to find it .
Olmstead : We did a lot of research for what the most taken up spot in America were . We wanted it to be like a movie , a visual feast .
Kunert : It was the job of a manufacturer or associate producer to go to a locating and spend the nighttime alone . If they were n’t scared , we were n’t going to send a whole crew .
Olmstead : We want to hump if it feel haunted and if we could tell a story about it .
Phillips : Jonas Larsen scouted a location . He is the most spirit level - headed , nerveless , no - nonsensicality guy , and he come up back with a chronicle that blew our minds .
Larsen : I went to this island in upstate New York to take care at a castle that had been build in the 1800s by a guy for his wife who died before it was ever completed . A pastor lived there and did Sunday service . The caretaker take me there in his speedboat . I spend metre touring . It was suspect in a Scooby - Doo kind of direction . essentially , there was a connection of secret passageways in the house . There were even eyeholes cut out of painting so you could sleuth on mass . There was also a jail electric cell , in what was supposed to be a private residence , which made me odd .
The pastor ask round me to spend the night or else of going all the way back to the hotel . At about 3 or 4 ante meridiem , I felt a tug on my sheets . I had a feeling of not being able-bodied to move , like someone had taken the shroud and was holding them down . I laid like that , awake , like , “ What the f * * * is take place ? ” All of a sudden , I felt it let go . I plow on the luminance and there was nothing there . I did not go back to nap .
Flynn : Jonas was a total non - believer .
Larsen : I travel quite a bit . Your sleep habits get messed up . It could ’ve been a combination of being in an unfamiliar place and jet stave , or it could ’ve been some paranormal thing . I have no idea .
Olmstead : He was sure he had a little PTSD . He felt he was attacked in his bedroom .
Flynn : He came back , sat with me and Dawn , and said , “ I ’m drop out the show . ” He felt he had been abducted by a wraith .
Larsen:[Laughs ] They ’re embellishing . I bring about the eternal rest of the episodes .
It could be toilsome for viewers to grasp how intimidating some of the show ’s location could be . In addition to multiple prisons and mental institutions , Feareventually made it to the supposedly haunted USSHornet ; the Duggan Brothers cement manufactory , which had seen numerous industrial accidents ; and the Ki Sugar Mill , a shuttered Hawaiian location reportedly harbor a unknown subterranean creature .
Colton : These piazza were immense . Hundreds of thousands of satisfying feet . Just to go down into one of these position in the dark , it ’s a headf * * * in good order off the cricket bat .
Phillips : The early dominion was : If it has a washing soda machine , we ’re not depart .
Barreto : It had to have a history . It had to be quondam . That was an environment conducive to having that kind of experience .
Phillips : We did n’t want to go to places you had learn of . We were n’t become to the Winchester House .
Colton : These buildings had been empty for decades .
Phillips : We had [ psychical ] Carla Baron get along in advance and decide where the paranormal indication were . They ’d tell us , “ Be in this elbow room . ” Carla was endearing and acute . We all believe in her ability .
Carla Baron ( Medium):Cris Abrego called me , or I call him . A acquaintance of mine knew Bonnie Hammer at MTV and indicate me for the series . So we talked and I said , " You should shift the name of the show fromFeartoMTV ’s Fearbecause the numerology would be much more successful for you . " He said , “ You ’re freak out me out . The meshwork just call and wants to commute the name toMTV ’s Fear . ”
head of hair : We did all the employment before the contestants testify up . The whole crew knead like crazy to lay all the cable television , set up up the dares , and put the cameras in the right places .
Barreto : Someone told me we laid down 10,000 foot of cable in some places .
Flynn : We were maybe using more cable television service than the Super Bowl .
Phillips : This was long before the idea of distant cameras . We rigged cable for all of the camera .
Kunert : We had to check that the places were safe so no one hurt themselves .
Phillips : The leper colony in Canada is probably my most memorable fix . It blew my mind . It was this huge , abandoned city , like everyone had just suddenly pass on .
Colton : The Boettger Brewery [ a.k.a . Lemp Mansion in St. Louis , Missouri , wheremultiple peoplehad committed felo-de-se on the premises ] stood out for me . There was tons of debris around . sometime tables , desk , vats , debris . It look like a deserted supernatural environment .
Phillips : The locations were terrifying even during the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . If they had electrical energy in the preceding 50 yr , we were psyched .
head of hair : Some of these places had been condemned . You could n’t trust the floor .
Baron : I’d go through way and see what latent ghostly activeness was there — if there was anything dangerous , anything unresolved , if there were spirit that needed to move on .
Phillips : We usually renamed the places for security grounds . Sometimes we had to beg for permission and had to anticipate [ website representatives ] they would n’t end up with people descending on them .
Olmstead : For Fairfield State Hospital , we were on the phone with the city manager , then the governor ’s office . It was an old , abandoned genial foundation where atrocious thing befall and they did n’t need it to look speculative for the state . So we wound up changing the name to St. Agnes , afterAgnes of God .
Oddly , many of the truly unsettling experiences surroundingFearhappened off - camera , when the production squad was getting situate in their haunts .
Barreto : St. Agnes , that position was not good . There were weird cold spots in the rooms . Half the way would be moth-eaten , half would n’t be . There were nasty smells all over the position . I in reality got sick .
Flynn : There were these unbelievable cold patches in places where we knew bad thing had happened , but there was no window or piece of cake of any kind belowground . There was no account for it .
Olmstead : I feel a lot of eldritch things . Sometimes you ’d be in one way that was identical to another and just feel like your soul dropped out . The next day , a grasp would refuse to go in the same room to lie down cable . The psychical would come up in and pop out crying , saying many people had been murdered in the room .
Manes : One example I wo n’t forget . It was mayhap in a hospital . One contestant was walking down a hall underground from one edifice to another . She was talking to the others back at the dependable theatre . Everything is fine until she walk near this room numerate 572 , which was in the docudrama . She enounce , “ Oh , wow , I feel this weird cold aura flop there . ” All of a sudden , her cameras went stagnant , the igniter in the hall go numb , the flashlight went dead . These were all on self-governing shelling reservoir . All three went numb at the same time .
Phillips : We were at the Buck Hill Inn , and Luis was the conductor on that one . I looked over and as he was talking , blood pop out running out of his nose . It was some kind of asbestos issue . We were all getting sick .
Barreto : That ’s straight . That did materialize . However , I did get nosebleeds from sentence to time before I worked on the serial so I ’m not certain the location had anything to do with the hemorrhage .
Flynn : I’m not certain where we were , but there was a fourth dimension when a gang fellow member always felt like he had a hand on his back . One time he took a digital video and in the center of the frame of reference was something that take care like a binge . It was like a tide rip in the infinite - time continuum .
Baron : A crew member got bear on down the stairs at the pen by something . He was by himself . He diminish all the way down . He was so frightened he almost quit the show .
Phillips : At the lazar settlement , we went to the bathroom in groups . Three of us were working there lately at night . There was a house near where we were shooting , which was exciting , since we used Porta - Potties a lot . So I walked up the steps with Jenn , the accountant , next to me along with another girlfriend . I go to touch the room access and the doorway handle just turned and open up itself . The door swung open . We all just ran and screamed . No one would impact the household after that . It became this legendary narration .
Baron : I drop dead back to my hotel when we were doing Eastern State Penitentiary and something follow me back there . I got a call asking if this was Carla . It was someone with an Amerind accent . I bid production right away and asked if they had transmit anyone over . They tell no one had promise me . We signed agreements where we ca n’t tell anyone where we were going . Nobody knew I was there . I call the front desk . There were no claim that night . I talked to someone for five minute who knew my name .
At midnight , there ’s a bash on the door so loud it could awaken the beat . I said , “ Who ’s there ? ” Someone said , “ housework . ” I swung the door open . There are 50 rooms to either side of me . No one was there .
Phillips : Eric and I get going to the Ki wampum plantation in Hawaii a week early to get a feel for thing . There was this two - mortal subterranean elevator that carry you down , then you ’d get into a gravy holder in some water supply tunnel . It was like a mile underground . We see this immense , white , prehistorical creature illuminate by a flashlight — this biologic creature .
mane : I do n’t remember the details but I definitely remember going down in that nasty erstwhile elevator with Alissa , in the dark , and getting really freaked out to the point that we turn right around and got the hell out of there . I do n’t even retrieve making it out of the elevator . I think we see something tight stuck to the rampart with our flashlights and say , “ Screw this , ” and high - tailed it out of there as tight as possible .
Phillips : It was this bone white crab thing crawl in this place with no light . It was improbable . We started rowing back . No one else ever saw it . We pray the plaster cast would .
With the surroundings of each episode cautiously laid out , producers for the most part sat back and allowed the presentiment atmosphere to influence the contestant ’ behaviour .
Colton : In a zero - visibility surroundings , your mind becomes a vehicle for some intense hallucination . You intend you ’re realize things and you ’re not . Their mind were their own worst enemies .
Phillips : We had to run multiple kids through the same dare sometimes to get one fresh enough to apply . They ’re screaming and expend the photographic camera .
Baron : I enjoin , " Look , someone needs to talk to the kids before they go into these location . They have no idea what they ’re contend with . "
Olmstead : If a daring did n’t further the story , or if it did n’t play out on tv camera , we ’d cut it . Sometimes we want to free tenseness or wanted something to be funny , like a full horror movie .
Harbison : They did n’t show my daring for some understanding . I had a dare where I went into a cave that was boarded up where they purportedly trapped one of these Nahuals . I was supposed to tear it down with a pickaxe and stand there with my back to the entryway in complete secrecy . I did it , but they did n’t show it .
Cassidy : They’d split up into squad and use walkie - talkies to communicate . The radios would crepitate and conk out up and people would get scared .
Colton : They would psych themselves up to the point where any trivial sound would typeset them off .
mane : They would freak the f * * * out .
Kunert : I remember the first sentence we had a séance , the mesh said , “ No more séances . ”
Larsen : That was a child performing a séance in the basement of the Fairfield asylum . He started speaking in tongue and acting weird . It was like he was communicate with the bushed . observe it live , I was like , “ What the perdition is going on ? ” It freaked him out and freaked us out , like , “ Wow , maybe we easily not mess up with a Ouija gameboard . ” It was the last time we used that .
Baron : One kid had marks on her leg that no one could have made . She was in a room all by herself .
Phillips : MTV was supportive except for the Civil War episode . We did a stigmatisation on a mortal . It never made it on - silver screen . We set up it with dry frappe so it was n’t an actual stigmatisation — it would n’t harm you . But it looked like the someone was getting brandmark . We even operate a little card onscreen tell , “ No one was harmed . ” But he think he was being burn , yeah .
Larsen : We did n’t want to psychologically damage anyone . It was supposed to be fun .
Colton : The contestants were never fake . They would have to be a great histrion to do some of the shit they did , bouncing off the wall and going apesh*t .
Phillips : We want to do a werewolf sequence and mean we could enlarge to the middle ground of a mythical monster . That was the swelled episode [ “ Mina Dos Estrellas ” ] where everyone quit . There was one guy in the two - parter who was the last one by himself on the first night . Everyone else had quit . He ’s sitting there by himself just face up at the cap and my heart went out to him . He was frightened but he did n’t want to fall by the wayside . We really wanted him to go on .
Dodge : I did n’t handle if six mass had quit . In my creative thinker , nothing was run low to happen to me at all . If it did , I ’d be plenteous .
Kunert : That episode had a guy climbing down into a infernal region and crying for his female parent .
Dodge : I did ask for my mom . “ I want my mama . ” I was playing into it .
Harbison : I do commend think he was a little too hysterical for what was move on , but I also look at it like , I was n’t down there with him . I do n’t fuck what he ’s going through . I ’m centre on my sh*t .
dodging : I was down there for a while . There were real bats flying down in the pit and that was freaky .
Olmstead : I was there watching footage live and more than once I felt like , “ Should we pull the fire hydrant on this ? ” It seemed like he was about to break .
Dodge : So many people give me sh*t for that , friends I twist with in college . I was like , “ Dude , I ’m adjudicate to get camera time . ” I never felt afraid in any way or upset .
While some contestants expressed little concern over the potentiality for paranormal contact , others claimed to have had a first - hand experience .
Barreto : We were at a military academy that had been open in the 1890s . The dare was for a woman to go down into a ulterior room and remain firm in a cross place , waiting for some emotional state to reach out to her . We ’re monitoring it and try what sounds like someone having sexual activity . Like , whoa , this is unearthly . She come back to the good house and explain that she was molested by a ghost .
big businessman : When people quit , they did it with existent tear . They ’d be shaking . It was psychological terror .
Barreto : Two years ago , I was sitting in a cafe in Los Angeles . A woman walk in and enounce , “ Hey , are n’t you Luis Barreto ? ” It was the same woman . She bring out herself as the woman who had been molested by a ghost . I opine she had gone crazy . She enounce , “ No , no , I fix back home and was o.k. . ”
Phillips : Some kid were John Rock . Watch the Danvers instalment . This one bozo had been there for hour by himself . Some tyke blew us away with their fortitude .
III: FEAR ITSELF
AsFearcontinued airing on MTV in 2001 and into 2002 , audiences were sometimes left wondering if some sequence had been enhanced by the output . Today , the interrogation remains : Were the slamming doors and howl confidential information created for issue , or did they have an organic — and potentially extrasensory — blood ?
Kunert : The thing we launch out from the starting time was if you do gimmick stuff , people will yelp , but it ’s good to let their imaginations go and have their own reverence play out . That ’s how you come up with unique reactions . That ’s why it ’s calledFear .
Manes : The two of us refuse any manipulation . It would destroy the show .
Flynn : We never had to do anything to augment people being frightened . A lot of reality show do what they have to do , but there was nothing we did to accentuate it . It was very organic . There were no special effects or boogeyman to frighten away the great unwashed .
Cassidy : You did n’t have to come up with fake scare . The place themselves were horrific . You desire to keep that feeling of it being authentic .
Breier : I remember hearing winding or other noise , but the prison house was so grownup and vacant with so many openings , the element could have played a factor . I do n’t think they were staging anything .
Olmstead : We want the viewer to go , “ Oh , no , do n’t get the Ouija board out ! ” That ’s where the handling came . If you were in an 1800s prison and learned it was on top of an old Indian burial ground , where is the last position you ’d want to be alone ? We ’d send the dissenter to that place and the viewer would have the info why it would be so scary to go there by yourself .
Phillips : I can say with absolute impunity we worked so firmly to deliver a true show with wholeness . Reality TV was not like it is now . We want to attain as much of a paranormal experience for the cast as possible .
Olmstead : Most of the noises were interpretable to the place . A draft may have come together a threshold . I would say there were time we pull strings the metre skeletal system of the chemical reaction and the strait .
Larsen : There might be some well - placed sounds or something mechanically skillful , where you ’d brush your leg against something . Sometimes we ’d use things like that , but for the most part , it was their own resource .
Colton : We never said that we would show you ghosts . What we enounce was , “ We severalise the contestants there are ghosts . Now see them freak out . ”
Cassidy : Even withThe Real World , there were early discussions of , “ What happens if it ’s tiresome ? If citizenry are just sit there ? ” But anything excogitate read as project . Anything you do where TV audience can maneuver and say , “ That ’s a slice of fishing pipeline tied to a chair , ” once you do it once , you break your contract with the hearing . Nothing was ever stage to move . In a blue , shivery place , the mind provides you with enough .
Olmstead : We knew if they caught us doing something , they would be snapped out of the experience . And in very large place , like an abandoned cement manufactory , you ’re gon na hear material .
Dodge : Some second I was like , “ MTV has set this sh*t up well . ” They asked me to put some goat stemma down in the nether region , then the wind starts swirling . And then I try some evil growling like mighty outside . There ’s no one down there but me . Like an evil sound , “ Ehhhhhhh . ” That ’s a really good sound effect , or there is something really evil out here .
The other enquiry : Could a reality serial really be filmed with nearly no interposition from the production ?
Manes : We had one person who was on location in pillow slip they had expert difficulty , if their camera batteries die or the tv camera was n’t working . You could n’t go Clarence Shepard Day Jr. without a working photographic camera . What they did n’t know is that the [ technical school ] person was an off - duty police force office and paramedic .
Barreto : There were people they could verbalize to , but not daily . It ’s not like , “ Hey , guys , come here . ” Once they were insert , like on the USSHornetin the bowels of the ship , they ’re committed to receive the experience .
Colton : You have to recollect , we had multitude walking in the wickedness . We had to have sure prophylactic measure in place to verify they did n’t get injured . People were post in the location to verify they were o.k. and then we had the command room to monitor shots .
Manes : stimulate a drop wireless signaling was a nightmare . We wanted them talking with each other . The problem was operate underground into wine cellar with thick walls . A lot of these structure were old and built strong .
As the series progressed , producers had more ambitious plans . But by the standards of the reality genre , Fearwas quickly becoming an expensive proposition for a budget - conscious MTV .
Kunert : We want to do the catacombs in Europe .
Olmstead : We want to go abroad and take it to the next level .
Flynn : We had a immense list of locations we wanted to research . We had big plan to go to castles in Europe with these thousand - year histories . We were thinking of doing celebrityFear .
Barreto : You’d turn during the day , then be up all night for three day , then travel somewhere else to do it all over again . We ’d be on the road for seven or eight weeks at a time . It was cumbersome . You ca n’t move all that equipment and all that cable by air .
Manes : One of the problems we had with MTV which seems comical now is that the technology at the time was so incredibly expensive . Just the [ file ] storage alone . Now I have as much store at rest home as we were using then . But the space for the footage from all the camera be given all the time was a huge thing .
Kunert : They wanted us to cut the documentary we showed to participants . Well , if you do n’t feast their imagination , you wo n’t have the same result .
Barreto : They cut the budget on the second time of year . They wanted us to spend less money and have the same show .
Despite the solid rating , Fearwas canceled in early 2002 .
Colton : It was a self-aggrandising hit . We were shocked when it got canceled .
Phillips : I remember being sad about it but I had also been traveling literally for two years . There was a stage of my lifetime where I vividly recall being at the airport and get no clue where I was or what plane I was supposed to catch . I did n’t eff what state I was in . It was amazing and wearing .
Kunert : There was a rumor someone got kill on the show , but that was n’t dead on target .
Larsen : There was a regime modification . John Miller , the executive who greenlit the show , left . That might ’ve had something to do with it .
mane : The evaluation were fantastic . That was n’t the exit . It was relatively expensive compare to other things MTV was doing at the time . Kids [ on other show ] are just advert out . Our was many times more expensive .
Colton : It does n’t matter how expensive something is . Nothing is cheap than a smash , and MTV was not spending a lot of money on the episodes . They were only giving out a prize of five chiliad ! masses were sh*tting their pants on camera for $ 5000 !
Olmstead : MTV total to Beau and I and ask us to halve the budget . We were unwilling to do it . We knew what it took to make the show . We enjoy the show and did n’t want to make a less version of it . We thought they might come in back and say , “ OK , do it , ” but that did n’t happen .
Cassidy : Most reality demo do n’t travel every week . It took real money and real workforce and feat to do it right .
Kunert : Even today , it in all likelihood cost double as much as an intermediate reality show does in 2018 .
Phillips : Reality became very flash to produce . Get one cinematographer rather of 70 unmanned cameras .
Colton : What I heard is that because of 9/11 , the idea of people running around in the dark and yell was too close to family after the Towers had come down . hoi polloi were in rubble . MTV order , “ We ’re not indisputable the world really require to watch this anymore . ”
head of hair : After 9/11 , they did express business concern people would be flip out through epithelial duct and hit someone run down a saturnine hallway screaming for their life . We were never told it was the reason , but we feel it was a combining of that [ and money ] .
Colton : They might have mask it in a budget situation but look what happened after 9/11 . You had a mountain of smell - good , touchy - feely comedy .
Flynn : I think something happened at MTV where they did n’t desire a show with multitude in stranded spaces .
Cassidy : All the networks reevaluated their content in light of 9/11 . They might have wondered if it seemed exploitatory .
Barreto : I conceive MTV choke . It could ’ve been a repeated serial likeReal World . But they rolled up the carpeting on it .
Although it ’s not commercially available and rarely ascertain in reruns , Fearfans have proceed Logos of the serial alive by uploading episode on YouTube . More than 16 years after the last sequence aerate , it preserve to be an inspiration to other paranormal - theme projects both on television and in picture show .
Baron : MTV was pioneer with this . I met the [ cast of the Syfy docuseries]Ghost Hunters , Jason [ Hawes ] and Grant [ Wilson ] , and they thank me . They said , “ Carla , ifFearhadn’t happen , our show would n’t exist . ” We were the first show of its sort .
Colton:[The 2007 found - footage movie]Paranormal Activitywas just a higher - budgetFear . the great unwashed search into cameras and talk .
Cassidy : If you search atParanormal Activity , I think the visual tropes of the show — that grainy , dark video that conveyed legitimacy — lived on .
Breier : It was a clock time when reality TV was a new construct . It was n’t established as the successful thing it became .
Colton : I suppose if you brought backFeartoday it would have to be more gamy - tech . I call back the tastes of the interview have changed .
Cassidy : Like with a flock of reality stuff , the measure has been raise . At the clock time , there was n’t a huge overplus of supernatural ghost hunting shows . But human behavior is always fascinating . It could ferment . Visually , we have more putz to cover the experience .
Colton : The show came together in a way you had n’t seen before and that ’s why it stand by with masses . If I run into a younger someone and we ’re talking repulsion movies and I ask if they ’ve seenFear , they say , “ No , but I ’ve heard so much about it . ”
Manes : It was n’t a game show . People were n’t competing against each other . They all got rewarded if someone finished and made it all the way through . It was designed so they would have a go at it each other and seek to support one another . It gave the show a different feeling from what reality demo later became , which was nasty .
Dodge : I’m still friends with Jason and [ contestant ] Adesina on social media . There ’s definitely a bond there .
Breier : At a vernal years , it opened up my mind to image how a group of human being from different pass of life can promptly become dependent on someone to facilitate you through a post .
Olmstead : In a minute of fear , they could reveal something about themselves . mayhap it was that they were gay and arrive out , or maybe it was issues with their father . The fear could infract and reconstruct you in the same episode .
Flynn : It was an chance for people to not be afraid anymore . perhaps they were embracing gender they had kept to themselves . They felt a existent sense of accomplishment .
Manes : If people realize I was involved inFear , they normally ask , “ Did you think it ? Did you believe the place were haunted ? ” I come from a unbelieving state of mind , but crew members had experiences that were unexplainable . It open my mind to perhaps there ’s something more than I consider there was . These places were genuinely scary .
Flynn : I learned a lot fromFearthat I have into make movies , like [ 2005’s]The Exorcism of Emily Rose . There ’s a theory and a concept about opening yourself up to these things . If you countenance yourself to see the devil , the Prince of Darkness can see you .
