There’s magic stirring in the jungles along the coast from Kahana Bay to Waimea Valley, but it’s not the bright and friendly kind.

It’s magic with menace, the kind so terrifying you can’t turn away.

And if the creators of ABC-TV’s new series "The River" deliver on their promise to scare viewers, the midseason replacement could become a terrifying ratings hit. Based in Hawaii, which will double for the Amazon, the series has been quietly shooting episodes — and even scaring actors — since August.

"The River" is the story of the search for wildlife expert and TV personality Emmet Cole — played by veteran actor Bruce Greenwood — who has vanished deep in the Amazon. To fund the search, Cole’s family agrees to allow a documentary crew to come along.

What they discover is the rarest of things: horror on network television.

"It’s a character drama, but it also has these really scary moments," said Darryl Frank, the 42-year-old co-president of DreamWorks TV and an executive producer on the show. "It’s a great mystery at its core. And it’s like nothing you have ever seen on television before."

No one is saying much about how the Amazon adventure will unfold. Even during a recent visit to a location shoot at Waimea Valley, a scene with ghostly extras must remain a mystery.

The show’s creative team includes movie mogul Steven Spielberg and director Oren Peli, who wrote and directed the sleeper film hit "Paranormal Activity." The TV series is relying heavily on the same "cinéma vérité" style to present the search for Cole, Frank said. Although it’s a scripted drama, "The River" is designed to come across as a real story being told by the documentary crew’s multiple cameras — as many as nine — all rolling at the same time.

Even with that many cameras, the show’s fear factor will count on the power of suggestion.

"I think that shooting style is what makes it scary," Frank said. "What’s happening outside the frame is as scary as what’s happening inside the frame."

One thing "The River" won’t do in its search to scare: gore.

"We don’t want anything that’s slasher," Frank said. "We feel it’s scarier to do it the other way."

ABC ORDERED eight episodes of "The River," which it has tentatively scheduled to begin airing in March. The show extends the love affair the network has with Hawaii: ABC shot six seasons of "Lost," then followed that global hit with the medical drama "Off the Map," which was canceled this past spring after 13 episodes.

"The River" has a large cast, including Leslie Hope as the explorer’s wife Tess, Joe Anderson as his son Lincoln, Paul Blackthorne as Clark, the producer of his nature show, and Daniel Zacapa as Emilio, the mechanic on the boat they take up the river.

The relationships between the characters have inspired the actors — Hope called it "the heart of the show" — but that doesn’t mean they aren’t above a good rattling.

"Just reading the scripts I’ve jumped a few times," said Blackthorne, a 42-year-old British actor who has worked in numerous TV shows since 1999. "I’ve been taken completely by surprise by what’s going on there. It is scary."

The 29-year-old Anderson, another British actor whose credits include "Across the Universe," was drawn to "The River" by what it was not.

"We’re not standing around doing the same thing, standing around a hospital bed or standing around a dead body doing the detective thing day in and day out," he said. "It is completely different day in and day out, and it allows us as actors to be quite ‘rangey’ and get a lot of color into what we’re doing."

The show’s multiple cameras offer a unique set of acting pressures, since the actors are being shot from every angle.

"So you have to be on your game 100 percent of the time," Anderson said. "If you drop the ball at any stage, someone is going to catch that."

The show is also creating a unique dynamic within the cast, as actors who are part of the fictional documentary film crew shoot some of the scenes for the real series.

"You have relationships as actors speaking lines to one another, but also when they are filming you, that adds a whole other dynamic there," he said. "But I must say these guys are becoming rather established cameramen in their own right. I’ve even heard at times that we don’t need to bring the real camera guys in because they got it."

Zacapa, who was told by executive producer Michael Green to remain in character whenever he was on set, said the characters in "The River" are on a quest.

"We are in search of the truth or as many truths as we can find, and we recognize life is in the journey, not in the goals that one may have set," he said.

But that search is the kind of television that requires "seat belts for your couches."

"I’ve heard it described — and I’ve felt it myself because I’m in it — with the word ‘intense,’" Zacapa said. "This is an incredibly intense hour of television."