Last week, audiences got a fright-filled and sometimes surreal taste of one of TV's newest horror series, Syfy's Ghost Wars. It was full of weird hallucinations, crazy deaths and other genre-centric moments that fans relish in. But when CinemaBlend recently spoke with Ghost Wars star (and Battlestar Galactica vet) Kandyse McClure, she told me that on top of all the expected horror elements, the new thriller will actually throw some stress-relieving comedy in the mix. In her words:
Maybe it's because I'm kind of a geek for it, but I think it's so cool. It's so creepy, first of all. Even for me; I've read these scripts, and it's so creepy. And for all the real diehard horror fans out there, you will get your fair share of gore. I love that they found a way to incorporate it. It's kinda messed up, but the gore becomes this normalized thing. Like, it's just a part of the world that we live in. . . . And then this amazing line we were trying to find was in finding these moments of comedy. These moments of a pressure-release, in terms of the doom that is Port Moore some of the time, so I think we've done really well with it, and I'm so excited for people to see it. So there you go: horror, comedy and the performances...I mean, Meat Loaf. Can I just say that Meat Loaf is fantastic?
Anyone who looked at the cast list for Ghost Wars almost certainly hoped for there to be some kind of comedy aspect involved -- nobody would get mad about Vincent D'Onofrio, Kim Coates and Meat Loaf taking the piss out of each other on a weekly basis -- but the promos and marketing for the show have played things pretty clearly down the horror-driven line. It sounds like, now that Ghost Wars has laid down its haunting foundation, the story will open up to allow for some more colorful personalities to join the fun. Not coincidentally, the narrative's broadening will happen as the small town of Port Moore is cut off from the rest of civilization, compounding any claustrophobic feelings the remaining citizens might have. And while claustrophobia isn't so inherently funny, something is coming that'll get us laughing.
During our chat, Kandyse McClure clued me in on when viewers might get to see some of the funnier moments, and it sounds like we might not have to go much deeper into the 13-episode first season to witness them.
I was actually saying to Avon [Jogia, co-star], 'They haven't even met the really funny people yet.' The really funny people only show up later on, in a couple episodes. So the fact that it's already kind of built-in to the backdrop of the show, we have Dennis Heaton, I think, to thank for that. He's one of our executive producers, he's the head writer. he comes from a pedigree all his own, we're so lucky to have him. I'm so grateful to be working with him. He's really amazing. But that's Dennis Heaton, fighting for the funny. 'I know there's a pool of blood, but...There's a joke in here somewhere!'
Even though Dennis Heaton was most recently responsible for working on the Canadian police procedural Motive (which starred Ghost Wars' Kristin Lehman), he's quite well known for his comedy-driven efforts. I mean, he got his start working on MTV's Brothers Grunt and the two Tales from the Far Side TV specials.
Now, all this isn't to say that the first episode of Ghost Wars was completely without laughs. Personally, I had a chuckle while watching Vincent D'Onofrio's Reverend Dan freaking out over the hallucinated wounds all over his body, as well as when that reanimated corpse popped up via ghastly delusion. Sure, it was more about the fear-driven exhilaration from imagining myself in that scenario, more so than anyone having said a hilarious joke, but still.
As genre fans know, horror and comedy go together as well as apples and pie crust and ice cream. Movies like American Werewolf in Paris and Shaun of the Dead are modern classics for both their legitimate scares and their well-balanced humor. Ghost Wars doesn't seem like the kind of show that would go quite so direct with its comedy, but if there's a bar around that's named after a gun, then we might be in business.
With freaky spectres and Ghost Wars airs every Thursday night on Syfy at 9:00 p.m. ET. To see everything else we've got coming to the small screen soon, head to our fall TV premiere schedule.
