Killer Camp, ITV2

In January 2019, ITV2 commissioned Tuesday’s Child to make Killer Camp – a stripped horror reality whodunnit set in a 1980s American summer camp where unsuspecting campmates must expose the killer amongst them, as one of them is brutally ‘murdered’ each gory night.

After years spent learning the dark arts of terrifying people in forests with chainsaw-wielding clowns, slobbering German Shepherds (dogs, not farmers) and vomiting twins in our pre-Tuesday’s Child lives as producers on Release the Hounds, we set out to create a show that made viewers shriek with laughter as much as they shrieked in fear, with a reality cast in which they could really invest.

We wanted to lure viewers in with the promise of hilarious cinematic deaths and masked serial killers and keep them hooked as the murder mystery, skulduggery and real relationships play out.

Knowing that whoever you are watching might be the killer adds a whole new layer of intrigue. The innocents made friends to protect themselves, while the killer made friends to put them off their scent. The gameplay is powered by winning friends and influencing people.

With encouragement, the contestants adopted the preposterous vernacular of our horror movie world; people weren’t voted off, they were ‘murdered’; the saboteur amongst them was the ‘killer’; and each night campmates really, really didn’t want to ‘die’. The effect is contributor conversations that were totally natural but could have been a scene in Scream.

We wanted the experience to be as immersive as possible for both the contestants and viewers, so we created Camp Pleasant, housing the contributors in a beautiful lakeside lodge, complete with its own logo, branded outfits and vintage Americana, in a forest in Lithuania. The art department’s attention to detail was second-to-none, helping to deliver real Hollywood bang for our non-scripted reality buck.

“Our contributor conversations were totally natural but could have also been a scene in Scream” - James Donkin

We needed genuine reactions when the true nature of the show was revealed on camera to contestants, well into the first day of filming. That meant that contributors not only needed to be double released, but it also carried the genuine risk that any of them could bail when the ‘Summer Camp’ they had applied for became the ‘Killer Camp’ we had created. (We had standbys holed up in a hotel in Vilnius and back in London, to cover that eventuality).

The cloak and dagger efforts were made trickier when recruiting the killer to hide amongst the cast. We knew we needed to pick the perfect, resilient and most cunning character we could find, who was also not predictable to cast nor viewer.

Sadly, the Lithuanian weather proved hugely unpredictable, turning from sunshine to torrential rain and thunderstorms in seconds, and meaning, with a hugely tight schedule, big calls had to be made in conjunction with executive Steph Harris about moving outdoor games under cover.

Contingencies were in place but moving entire units from beautiful outdoor locations over several miles at the last minute is always a wrench and required everyone to dig deep as rain-drenched sets were packed onto pickups.

Geography also meant that it didn’t get dark until close to midnight – we required night for atmospheric campfire and murder scenes – so filming days started with breakfast at 2pm and wrapped at 2am.

Local crews and language barriers made the days even more intense, but we were fortunate to work with a great first AD who helped to keep us on track – just.

Gory contestant deaths

The cinematic quality also factors into another unique aspect of Killer Camp – the gory contestant deaths. Pete Tierney and Paul Mortimer at ITV trusted us to run with the idea and realise its full gloriously gory potential, while Neil Francis from legal guided in getting the tone of the murders right and compliant. Pete also rightly pushed us to hammer home the format clarity and rules of the game, taking viewers clearly on the journey.

We wanted each of the eliminated contestants to become the star of their own horror movie. We promised over-the-top Hollywood deaths (see box below), but how would these grisly bits of fiction sit within a reality show? We decided our host, comedian Bobby Mair, should narrate the deaths round the campfire like a ghost story.

His recounting of their murders distances the death from the reality of the show. We’re clearly not actually murdering people, but they are a funny, bloody way to eliminate contestants each night.

The murders are actually carried out by the killer’s lumbering psychopath ‘Bruce’, played by a massive Russian actor, who had a terrifying habit of wandering around set in character. “Has anyone seen Bruce?” became a constant refrain on set.

Speaking of which, look behind you…