Exclusive

Teen Wolf's Season 5 Villains The Dread Doctors' Real-Life Inspiration Will Terrify You

Exclusive: Jeff Davis, Tyler Posey and more of the MTV hit's team dish on the new big bads, who make their debut in the June 29 premiere

By Tierney Bricker Jun 22, 2015 3:00 PMTags
Teen Wolf, Season 5MTV

Welcome to the season of dread, Teen Wolf fans.

We're just one week away from the season five premiere of the MTV hit series, and if you thought that exclusive cold open we shared with you was terrifying, well, you ain't seen nothing yet.

"I would call it a season of dread," executive producer Jeff Davis tells E! News of the new season. "And that's why our villains are called the Dread Doctors." 

So just how dangerous (and downright terrifying) are Beacon Hills' new big bads? For the first time in the show's history, the villains will be sticking around for longer than one season. "These are our only villains that carry on to the next season," star Tyler Posey reveals, with director Russell Mulcahy adding, "They have another [season], they will carry on because they will evolve."

And that evolution plays into their mythology, which has a few "really cool" reference points, much like previous baddies on Teen Wolf (the Oni, the Nogitsune,etc.).

"There are a variety of influences on these guys, going back from German experiments on humans in World War II to the steampunk asthetic, the gas-masks, and going back to Plague Doctors during the Bubonic plague," Davis  explains. "We drew on all those things, but this is actually one of the times were we did our own creating. We call them scientists who worship the supernatural and they have a very specific agenda in Beacon Hills and they are going to get in Scott's way quite a bit."

Posey, who is now a producer on the series, adds, "We took a lot of freedom and liberty…we made our own version of it. It was a lot of fun."

MTV

Though the Dread Doctors wear masks, fans can expect the villains to be very human, making them that much scarier. "It's probably the most human villains we've ever had and I think it's the creepiest because they're so human-like," Holland Roden previews.

However, don't expect  to see what's hiding under the masks in the first half of season five, as Mulcahy teases, "The real teaser, which won't be revealed until next season, is what's behind the mask."

Teen Wolf premieres Monday, June 29 at 10 p.m. on MTV.