Jordan Peele Reviving Fan-Favorite Horror Reality Series

The new Scare Tactics reboot will turn unsuspecting individuals into characters in horror movies, with family and friends helping to set them up and put them into scenarios that “blur the lines of reality, horror, and comedy.” This sounds right in line with the original series that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel for five seasons between 2003 and 2013. The series was originally hosted by Shannen Doherty with Stephen Baldwin taking over in the second season, and Tracy Morgan taking over in the third season.

The original Scare Tactics would employ special effects and makeup to create horror scenarios like clone attacks, alien invasions, and much more. The series was also notable for shooting and editing the pranks in a cinematic style, making them look like horror movies while also terrifying the unsuspecting prank victims. Pretty much every aspect of the show seems tailor made for Jordan Peele’s talents.

Jordan Peele broke into the mainstream with his comedy series Key & Peele alongside Keegan Michael-Key, so he’s more than familiar with making hilarious stuff. He then pivoted to making prestige horror movies like Get Out, Us, and Nope, which made him one of the most in-demand screenwriters and directors in Hollywood. His horror films also always have unique, fresh, and interesting ideas, so it’ll be great to see some of that creativity in a prank show setting.

Win Rosenfeld, president of Monkeypaw Productions, indicated that this will be the case saying, “the scenarios we cooked up for this season are really wild.” The original Scare Tactics first aired in 2003 and special effects and makeup have only gotten better since then, so it’s not hard to imagine people will easily fall for some of the scary scenarios the creative team has in store.

Plus, it has the advantage of not being currently on the air, so it seems pretty unlikely any of the pranked individuals would guess they’re on Scare Tactics like some people did in the original run.

Scare Tactics is set to be produced by Universal Television Alternative Studio along with Monkeypaw Productions and WMTI Productions, Inc. Peele, Rosenfeld, and Jamal Watson are serving as executive producers for Monkeypaw. Meanwhile, series co-creator Scott Hallock is executive producing for WMTI Productions Inc, while Elan Gale serves as executive producer and showrunner on the series.

There is no word yet on whether Jordan Peele will appear as the host of the show or if they’ll find some other celebrity hosts for the series. The OG show also had several guest stars to help scare the individuals, so it would be cool if we saw Peele use his Rolodex to bring on some celebrity guest stars, either to participate in the scaring or get scared themselves. There isn’t an official release date for Scare Tactics outside of the fall release window, but stay tuned and we’ll keep you updated.