‘The Terror’: Judith Light, Dan Stevens & More Introduce Anthology’s New Evil & Characters (VIDEO)

“When there’s actually a hoof kicking you in the face, it’s a bit more real, it’s a bit more visceral. It’s great fun,” says Dan Stevens of shooting his scrappy scenes fighting off an evil entity (just possibly the devil himself) lurking at New Hyde Psychiatric Hospital in the eerie third season of this horror anthology series.

In The Terror: Devil in Silver, Stevens plays a moving man, Pepper, described by the actor as “a reckless guy who solves things with his fists and feels that the world has been very unjust to him.” Pepper is wrongly institutionalized at the Queens facility after being arrested for popping off at a man threatening his girlfriend. (Watch the video above for our interview with Stevens and the cast.) In the six episodes, he struggles with patients working against him, doctors keeping ugly secrets…and, lurking behind a silver door, a possibly satanic someone who thrives on the residents’ suffering.

In the premiere, it seems the monster might be imaginary. No such luck. “It’s a feeling, but it is also a real thing that harms people, makes other people harm each other, and manifests in real ways that have something to do with who it’s manifesting to. It’s an evil that speaks to each person it meets,” says Victor LaValle (The Changeling), author of the novel on which the season is based. He is an executive producer and showrunner along with Christopher Cantwell, (Halt and Catch Fire) and Karyn Kusama (Yellowjackets), who directs the first two episodes.

Kusama reflects, “We’re now in this moment in daily life where it feels like there are a lot of silver doors, metaphorically speaking, that we wonder what’s on the other side. What is the truth?”

The metaphor of the creature as a bigger societal problem is a signature of The Terror anthology. Previous seasons saw an Arctic entity picking off prideful British explorers in Inuit lands and a shapeshifter from Japanese folklore haunting the unjustly detained residents of a U.S. WWII Japanese internment camp. “We get to make the statement that the only thing scarier than the devil is the American healthcare system,” says Cantwell.

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The grim state of that system is reflected in the real-life shooting location, a decommissioned correctional facility in Staten Island surrounded by barbed wire gates with narrow corridors leading to decrepit rooms. “The sense of enclosure and claustrophobia that you feel in the series is real. We didn’t build anything for the show. It was a pretty intense place to shoot,” Kusama says. “We needed actors who could really depict how these spaces frequently are designed to wear on your psyche.”

Keeping New Hyde Hospital going is administrator Miss Chris, played by CCH Pounder. “Miss Chris is the large and in charge one, the authoritarian figure,” Pounder says. “There are doctors above her, but they come in, do their thing, and leave. She’s hardworking and not well paid. She’s got blinkers on. That silver door… it’s like, we are not looking at this – that was handled. But she is very familiar with some accidents, cleanup. Then it [all] gets questioned. Her challenge is, do I ignore the questioning? Do I make a decision myself to do something about it as opposed to waiting for the visiting authorities?”

The motley crew of patients trying to survive the hellscape with group therapy, book discussions, and cafeteria gossip includes longtime resident Dorry, a nearly unrecognizable Judith Light. She describes Dorry’s perspective about her decades in the hospital: “There is resilience. There is striving. I’m going to be OK. I’m going to do whatever I have to do to make it through. I know people who have mental challenges and that’s the way they operate. They may struggle and be filled with sorrow, but they always try to keep their head above water.”

When it comes to the evil lurking in the hospital, Dorry is a store of knowledge. “You find out what she knows — and what she has had to do to stay alive,” Light says.

Dorry and Pepper eventually form a bond. “There is definitely an odd buddy comedy happening,” Stevens says. “It goes from ‘Who the hell is this crazy old lady?’ to something sweet.”

As his incarceration goes on, Pepper learns to care for his fellow patients and realizes the only way to escape the monster is for them to challenge it head on. “He goes from an impulsive, reckless male to having to face up to his own demons, the ghosts of his past, step up to the plate and care for people including his own family, his own son.” Stevens says. “He’s going to kick against the system, but it is also a system that needs kicking against.”

The Terror: Devil in Silver, Season 3 Premiere, Thursday, May 7, AMC