The River made a big splash at San Diego Comic-Con 2011. We learned more about the show and its cast, which we will share with you in several Comic-Con posts. First and most interesting to me were the thoughts from executive producer Oren Peli and writers Zack Estrin and Michael Green.

They say that The River will be scary because it’s believable, not because of how gross and disgusting it is:

“Our goal isn’t to shock the audience with gore and blood and torture porn,” Peli emphasized. “We want to scare people with scary stories. And the network, ABC, they said to get as scary as we can.” Added Green, “It feels like we’ve reclaimed horror from people who want to make it as disgusting as possible. We don’t want to show you crazy extremes of gore – we want to make it real.”

That quote was sourced from io9.com, where we also learned that the entire first season has been plotted, as they fully expect the show to get picked up for more than the 7 episodes (we have heard eight) that ABC ordered. Oren Peli says they have thought many seasons ahead, too. They better hold off on that until our forums heat up. Also from i09.com:

One of the big themes of the show is going to revolve around local legends about magic in the Amazon. The writers and actors have been reading a lot about these myths. Said Estri, “Legends about the Amazon are all designed to keep white people out. To repell people. But they’re also about how the Amazon will accept or repel you based on whether you’ll be a good or bad influence on it.” Laughing, Peli added that many horror stories abou the Amaon are about “the white people who ignore the warnings and are foolish enough to go there.”

Tags: amazon, comic con, michael green, oren peli, zack estrin