If you've seen the first two seasons of Outlast, then you know that contestants aren't really interested in helping out their fellow survivalists. They succumb to the Eddie Guerrero school of lyin', cheatin', and stealin'. But the fact that the show devolved into Lord of the Flies was very much a shock to its producers as well.
Like Jerry Springer, they had noble intentions at the start. But what they were left with was something down and dirty. Speaking with Outside Online, executive producer Grant Kahler details exactly what happened.
He said, "It started as a very innocent competition series for fans of Naked and Afraid and Alone and it devolved into this Lord of the Flies experience. Going into the project I knew there could be some aggressive behavior, because it is a game—people are hungry and freezing and there is money on the line. But I really thought the goodness of human nature would last, and that people's loyalty to each other and the bonds they created would win out in the end."
'Outlast' Producer Shocked
Consider the Outlast producer surprised when that didn't happen. He became very surprised by how people's ugly sides came out on Outlast. He said, "So, when the ugliness of human nature took over the story, I was surprised. I thought: What happened to this somewhat simple game? At the same time, we went out there to test this game theory, so I wasn't going to change it. Similarly, on Alone Season 1, we wanted to showcase how important survival is and shine a light on people's skills, and it turned out to be a psychological experiment with isolation. We went with it anyway. It's important to do that with these shows. The only other option is to hit pause on anything and we didn't want to do that."
According to the producer, it was all the contestants. The producers never asked them to be manipulative for the cameras on Outlast.
He said, "Yes, we were with them, but did we ask them to do stuff? Absolutely not—we were very hands-off. When the whole show changes in episode three and people start stealing stuff. And all hell breaks loose, myself and 70 percent of the crew were actually away preparing for an upcoming episode. We were told over walkie talkies that sabotage and ugliness was going down, and we just had the camera follow the contestants. But we had zero to do with prompting those situations. It was a surprise to all of us. But no, I would never manipulate them or produce a show by telling them to do that. We were flies on the wall for it."
