There’s a new Stephen King series coming our way: The Outsider, an HBO adaptation of one of the horror master’s more recent novels. The story concerns the investigation of a brutal murder with seemingly supernatural connections, and since it’s a Stephen King story, there’s a lot of spooky stuff going on. This new The Outsider featurette has the folks involved with the show talking about what makes a Stephen King tale so darn scary.

The Outsider Featurette

Stephen King is hotter than ever. Adaptations of the best selling author’s work continue to be all the rage on the big and small screen, and the latest is headed our way this weekend. It’s The Outsider, an adaptation of a horror mystery the writer published in 2018. The series “follows police detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn), as he sets out to investigate the mutilated body of 11-year-old Frankie Peterson found in the Georgia woods. The mysterious circumstances surrounding this horrifying crime leads Ralph, still grieving the recent death of his own son, to bring in unorthodox private investigator Holly Gibney (Cynthia Erivo), whose uncanny abilities he hopes will help explain the unexplainable.”

In this featurette, the people involved with the show – cast members, writers, and more – discuss their love of King’s work, while King himself shows up to talk about what makes him tick. King says he learned his “chops” from “some of the original writers who worked for The Twilight Zone…you can make people believe, if you have touchstones in the real world – then you introduce the element of the supernatural.”

He adds: “There are some damn strange things in this world of ours, and what always interests me is…how does a person cope with the unbelievable?”

I reviewed the first six episodes of The Outsider, and very much enjoyed what I saw. In fact, I liked it even more than the book. As I wrote in my review:

There have been many Stephen King adaptations lately, on screens big and small. The Outsider is one of the best because it understands what makes the things that spring from King’s imagination so horrifying. When you pore over King’s prose, and when you watch The Outsider, you feel the gooseflesh prickle up on your arms, because through it all you can’t help think, “This couldn’t possibly happen…or could it?” How scary is that?

The Outsider premieres January 12.