In the midst of a scarily massive real-world internet outage on the East Coast of the United States, Netflix unleashed the third season of the highly addictive, technophobic anthology horror series Black Mirror. Thanks to a new deal with Netflix, the British cult hit has received a significant upgrade. The season is longer (six episodes compared to the usual three), the budget is higher, and there is some A-list talent behind the camera—including BAFTA award-winning director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) and hot up-and-coming 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg.

Trachtenberg’s episode, “Playtest,” sees a backpacking American, Wyatt Russell, testing out a new gaming technology that puts the player in the middle of their own personal nightmare. The bulk of the episode plays out like a haunted-house story, with Russell carrying most of the plot—including jump scares and nasty twists—with his easy, Owen Wilson-esque charm. Trachtenberg spoke with Vanity Fair over the phone about the many video game influences on “Playtest,” and how Russell’s take on the character dramatically altered who we’re supposed to be rooting for.

Vanity Fair: If you were trapped in the video game of “Playtest,” what primal fear of yours would manifest?__

Dan Trachtenberg: Oh! Ooooooooo. First of all, I would never do it. Ironically, this episode is based on so many games that I’ve played. I appreciate the craft in Bioshock and Resident Evil, and I’ve played all of them. But I also learned that I don’t like playing them because I get really scared. So I would never do this. I have an Oculus, but I have not played any horror games for it and I never will. But, frankly, my worst fear is dying. I thought that we all were afraid of death, but I’ve talked to my wife and other people and they’re not afraid of death the way I am. I find that really confusing. I don’t like the idea of nothingness—that’s terrifying to me. But I don’t know how that could manifest in a horror video game.

But I think Charlie Brooker—who created Black Mirror—is like the British Larry David. He’s an intense worrier. But he worries in a very funny way, especially for others to observe. He knows a lot of worst-case scenarios, and has studied the preventative measures for those bad things. He had a million survivalist tips. He’s like a walking Wikipedia, so I think that we probably share that fear.

Was it 10 Cloverfield Lane that got you this job, or had the Black Mirror people seen your Portal short? Portal: No Escape seems almost like a better audition piece for this episode.

10 Cloverfield Lane had just come out—it was like a week or two after. It hadn’t even come out in the U.K. yet. But they were excited to hear about the movie, and then seeing it and talking to me about this episode that was kind of thriller-y, horror-y, not knowing that I had the same geektastic relationship with video games that Charlie [Brooker] has. We both used to host a show that reviewed video games, but didn’t know that about each other. So it became this match made in heaven, and we were able to tell a tale about video games that incorporated the games we know. We included so many Easter eggs throughout the episode that I’m so excited for our community to find.