For four seasons, From has been the most terrifying show on television. The MGM+ horror series is legitimately scary—beyond deaths or jump scares or blood (though there’s some of that), it has a way of getting into viewers’ heads. From Season 4, which has now been revealed as the show’s next to last season, has taken some major strides toward unraveling the secrets of this cursed town.

Ahead of the From Season 4 finale, TVBrittanyF.com spoke to the show’s creative team—executive producer/creator John Griffin, executive producer and director Jack Bender, and executive producer/writer Jeff Pinkner—to discuss how they’ve maintained the show’s quality for so long. The trio also explained how they’ve approached crafting the penultimate season, and what they love about the series.

Brittany Frederick: From isn’t just a good show, it’s legitimately scaring the audience and even the actors get startled. What does it mean to you to have made a series that has that kind of effect?

John Griffin: I think it’s very validating for all of our traumatic childhoods, that they’ve finally been put to good use. [Laughs.]

Jeff Pinkner: It’s very gratifying for us. I think it’s hard to do horror on television. It’s hard to scare people week after week, when you don’t have the investment of a two-hour movie. And I think it’s a credit to everyone involved—the actors, Jack [and] his direction, the writing, the art department. It’s a team effort, and everybody’s working in the same direction.

There were some major reveals about the town in Season 3. How did you approach crafting From Season 4, building on that information, but also setting up for what we now know will be the final season?

Griffin: It starts with the writing.

Pinkner: They’re all tricky. I think the reason we’re able to do it is we had a rough outline from the beginning of the progression of each season. And so the events as they occur and as the story changes, a lot of the material in between the mile markers we identified at the beginning is for us to play in. But we’ve known where we’re going all along, so it’s relatively easy for us to identify where we are in our story, and therefore what values we need to play with.

Bender: I will say one thing directorially also, and that is that every episode is tricky in its own way. The Donna heart attack episode was different for us. The mushroom trip was different for us—and I won’t just list ones I directed, because they’re all great in their own way, but every one is different.

One thing that’s been heartbreakingly consistent is that From truly is a show where anyone can go at any time, and there are characters who have really gotten beaten up. Is there anyone you’ve ever wanted to cut a break to, or how do you approach the human stakes of the series?

Griffin: We said from the beginning in Season 1 that the show needs to have teeth, no pun intended. The audience really needs to understand the stakes here, which was one of the factors that led to the death of Father Khatri in Season 1. It’s this character that you expect to be a pivotal figure in the series—and in fact is a pivotal figure in the series, even after death—but to have a character like that ripped away from you, and then you see it again in Season 3 with Jim.

At the same time, we never want to become this gratuitous “who’s gonna die this week” show. It’s a matter of threading that needle—the audience hopefully being on the edge of their seats, never knowing who’s going to be safe and who’s not, and sometimes just when it seems like something horrible might happen, it doesn’t. That’s as much of a reward as the grim satisfaction of losing a character and a shocking death. Navigating that, on a case by case and character by character basis, while keeping the scope of the whole show squarely in mind, is the challenge.

Bender: It’s also what we show and what we don’t show. From the beginning we made a decision together that showing the initial transformation, which happens really fast—the grandmother in the window was our first one. The shock of that, but not showing the devouring, not showing the gruesomeness, but showing the aftermath of those tragic bodies on the ground in the bedroom. That was very much a decision we made. How much are we going to show? And sometimes what you don’t show is as telling and as powerful as what you do show, which starts with the writing.

Pinkner: A lot of the horror of this show, it turns out, lives in the audience’s mind. A lot of the horror is based on the things that we imply, and we make the audience imagine, that we don’t actually show.

Have there been highlights for you in From Season 4? Things along the way that you particularly enjoyed, either in execution or just getting to do?

Griffin: When I think of the season as a whole, and when I think of what is essentially like a two-part season Seasons 4 and 5 as we sort of land the plane of the show, what I’m most proud of is the balance that we hit. You don’t just want Season 4 to feel like set up for Season 5. You want the journey of these two seasons—this sort of beginning of the end, all the way up until the finale, to feel really rich. Not like the first half is simply setting up the second half.

I think my favorite part is just the construction of the season, the way that we told the first half of this final story. I’m excited for the audience to see all of it. Certain episodes have certain mythology elements and certain story elements. Other episodes have certain big gags and exciting features. I think and hope it’s going to be a really fun ride for the audience, and I think it’s going to be a rewarding one, heading into our final season.

From airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on MGM+. Photo Credit: Courtesy of MGM+.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.