First ‘NOS4A2’ Teaser Steps From the Shadows

AMC released a chilling first look at upcoming horror series NOS4A2 during Sunday’s mid-season [...]

AMC released a chilling first look at upcoming horror series NOS4A2 during Sunday's mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead.

Inspired by Joe Hill's eponymous novel, pronounced Nosferatu, the supernatural horror series stars Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, American Horror Story) and Ashleigh Cummings (The Goldfinch, Hounds of Love) in its lead roles.

Emmy-nominated director Kari Skogland (The Handmaid's Tale, Sons of Liberty) directs the first two entries in the one-hour, ten-episode series, under executive producer Hill and showrunner Jami O'Brien (Fear the Walking Dead, Hell On Wheels).

Per an early synopsis:

Quinto will play Charlie Manx, a seductive immortal who feeds off the souls of children, then deposits what remains of them into Christmasland – an icy, twisted Christmas village of Manx's imagination where every day is Christmas Day and unhappiness is against the law. Manx finds his whole world threatened when a young woman in New England (Cummings) discovers she has a dangerous gift. Cummings will play Vic McQueen, a young, working-class artist whose creativity awakens a supernatural ability to track Manx. What Vic lacks in social confidence, she makes up for in courage, humor, and tough-as-nails grit. She strives to defeat Manx and rescue his victims without losing her mind or falling victim to him herself.

Also on board are stars Olafur Darri Olafsson (Lady Dynamite) as Bing Partridge, Virginia Kull (The Looming Tower) as Linda McQueen, Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Punisher) as Chris McQueen and Jahkara Smith (aka Sailor J) as Maggie Leigh.

NOS4A2 — named for the vanity license plate belonging to Manx — is the latest chiller to come to AMC, home to The Terror and the expanding Walking Dead Universe.

"I don't know where I came up with the license plate, but I do like titles that are puzzles. I think any time you can play a game with the reader or ask the reader an interesting question, you've started a conversation, you've engaged them, and readers want to be engaged," Hill told Nightmare Magazine in 2014.

"As we started to bring the book to press, there was some concern that the title might turn people off, because they'd look at it, 'NOS4A2' and think, 'What's that mean?' But I always thought getting people's attention and forcing them to pause for a second to try to puzzle out what it meant would be an advantage, not a disadvantage, because it makes the book kind of… intriguing."

NOS4A2 debuts this summer on AMC.