Film director McG, who is an executive producer on The WB’s upcoming horror series Supernatural, told SCI FI Wire that the show will tap into the same vein as Angel, The Ring, The Grudge and The Amityville Horror. The show follows Dean Winchester (Smallville’s Jensen Ackles) and his brother, Sam (House of Wax’s Jared Padalecki), as they travel across the back roads of America hunting down evil. "Supernatural is 180 degrees removed from anything I’ve done, which is why I’m so delighted to be a part of it," McG, aka Joseph McGinty Nichol, said in an interview. "We’ll be exploring the darker components of storytelling."

McG previously produced and directed the Charlie’s Angels films and is signed to do the same on the upcoming Hot Wheels movie. He added: "We hooked up with David Nutter [who directed the Supernatural pilot and will serve as an executive producer], and he’d obviously put together great things with The X-Files. Eric Kripke [The WB’s failed series Tarzan] wrote the show for us. And we’re just really, really excited to give people those scares week in and week out and to truly get you to a place where you cannot watch this show by yourself, or you ain’t going to sleep that night."

McG added that he’s not concerned about the potential limitations of putting across scary, violent stories on television. "I think a lot of the scares exist in the mind, which really works for this format," he said. "So we’re able to manipulate that experience and create those scares and not get into a situation with broadcast standards. We’re very influenced by the Japanese horror wave and creating a psychological terror, and that’s what you’re going to see a lot of on the show." Supernatural will debut on The WB in the fall and is set to air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.