AMC's The Terror took TV horror in a whole new direction

Vox

"The thing that makes The Terror special is how careful it is to avoid the trappings of most TV horror, which too often substitutes big jump scares for something more thoughtful," says Todd VanDerWerff of the first season. "There’s good reason for this: The kind of buildup required to create a horror tale that’s more psychologically disturbing than viscerally terrifying needs lots of real estate, but not too much. In a two-hour film, building to a massive climax with, say, an hour and 40 minutes of carefully calibrated setup feels just about right. But for The Terror to do the same thing would mean it essentially lived in a space of waiting for something to happen for around eight of its 10 episodes."

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• The limited format benefitted The Terror because there was no way of trying to sustain the series past one season
• "We were not going to change history," says co-showrunner Soo Hugh
• The Terror creators wrote a dictionary to re-create Franklin exhibition lingo