Stealing sleeping bags, ransacking shelters, destroying rafts.
All in an episode’s work.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the first season of Netflix’sOutlast.
Amber Asay, Jill Ashock, and Justin Court on ‘Outlast’.Netflix
Netflix just unleashed what might just the most brutal reality competition series ever inOutlast.
Instead of voting contestants out one-by-one, players win simply byoutlastingthe competition.
Not surprisingly, Alpha eventually turned on themselves, with Justin defecting over to the Charlie team.
Amber Asay, Jill Ashock, and Justin Court on ‘Outlast’.Netflix
GRANT KAHLER:The short answer is no, I didn’t.
No question, I knew about that.
Will the ugly side of human nature grab a hold of them and will they use dirty tactics?
Justin Court on ‘Outlast’.Netflix
Or will they work together to get through this?
It was obviously the former.
But no, I did not expect this.
Amber Asay and Jill Ashock on ‘Outlast’.Netflix
It’s not just lying to or backstabbing an alliance partner and voting them out.
This is a whole different level.
They were trying to freeze or starve each other out, which is pretty hardcore.
Javier Colon on ‘Outlast’.Netflix
What was the talk like between producers as this was happening?
Was there any discussion about stopping this or allowing it play out?
Obviously, it’s hard to sneak around if you have camera operators around that stuff, right?
Nick Radner, Seth Lueker, and Paul Preece on ‘Outlast’.Netflix
So they didn’t talk to us about it.
We weren’t prepared for it.
In fact, I wasn’t even there.
I was 10 miles away scouting a location for something we ended up not doing.
There’s no cell phone service out there.
I was actually way out of range for our walkies.
So I was with a safety guy on a boat.
I got back into range and I just found this all out completely out of the blue.
I was just like, “Holy s—!”
We went to the camps and saw what was going on.
My camera operators that were out there, they just followed it.
No one was prepared for it, because we cycle crew so that people do have some time off.
It’s on."
The people that were always on location were safety guys.
She had zero direction from myself or from other producers, because we weren’t prepared for it.
And she just covered it.
How did your medical team monitor Delta team throughout the night with no sleeping bags?
We had to keep on them pretty closely.
There was a morning or two that we were going to have to medically drop people.
Whether it was the right decision or not, we didn’t want to change the way it happened.
We didn’t want to hit the rewind button and give them their stuff back.
I didn’t tell Justin hecouldn’tdo that, I guess is what I’m saying.
It was shocking, for sure.
No question, it was shocking.
You know, there’s really two options.
They’re asking me behind the scenes, “When is this going to end?”
And I have no idea!
I was like, “I’ll sit here for a year if you want.
Doesn’t bother me!”
[Laughs] I said, “I didn’t expect it either.”
I’m not some completely innocent bystander here.
As long as everyone was safe.
But what if he’s a total a–hole?
That changes how you’re going to get through that experience.
This show is what happens in that scenario.
These people had never met each other.
They hardly even saw each other during pre-production.
They didn’t know each other’s names.
We kept them apart so they knew nothing going into it.
Did your pre-season predictions in terms of who you thought would do well match up to what happened?
And then some of the more timid people made it very far, if not to the end.
The Charlie team asked Justin to leave Alpha and join them.
He accepted, but when he admitted to ruining Alpha’s tarp they didn’t want him anymore.
Can a team force one of their own players out like that?
Could Justin, by the rules, have made a case to stay with the team?
How would that have worked?
They were always allowed to get rid of someone.
The only real rule was that you had to finish with the team.
So, in that scenario, it was interesting because someone else had to accept him.
you’re able to’t just disappear to a corner with a tarp and try and wait it out.
And he just didn’t have anywhere to go.
Gosh, it just depends.
I mean, they had pretty decent shelters going at that point, so they were warm.
That’s a huge thing.
It’s definitely possible.
At a certain point, it’s not even about survival, it’s just a mental game.
How long can you put yourself through it?
From what you saw on the show, people certainly were falling apart.
How close were the Charlie and Alpha teams at the end?
They both stumbled a fair amount getting out there.
It was pretty close.
It really took it out of them.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
