I must have been eight years old when I saw the "They're Creeping Up on You" section from the original masterpiece, CREEPSHOW. I've never been more nervous and confused, but I was drawn to my crappy tube television. I had never seen anything quite like it and had my dad rent it for me later that week, which caused a bit of a fight with my mom if my memory serves me correctly. Don't judge; those were different times. Ever since then, my love for CREEPSHOW and it's sequel were born.
In 2019, special effects wizard Greg Nicotero partnered with Shudder to bring us an anthology TV series inspired by the 1982 film. Rarely do revivals work, but this had heart and soul all over it. Within all six episodes, the tone, style, and passion of the original were translated perfectly for the small screen.
On June 2, 2020, we get the release of Shudder's TV series CREEPSHOW on Blu-ray and digital (WATCH IT HERE – OWN IT HERE). Arrow in the Head was lucky enough to talk with showrunner/executive producer Greg Nicotero about all things CREEPSHOW. Check out our interview in full below!
The CREEPSHOW sequel came out thirty-two years ago. Now, because of the time gap, did you have any challenges getting the TV series greenlit and produced?
"The interesting thing about CREEPSHOW is that it's one of those brands that everybody remembers like it was yesterday. I would wear a CREEPSHOW T-shirt to the market, and everyone was like, 'Oh my god, I love Creepshow!' I don't really even know why or how, but probably because the original movie was so ahead of its time. The interesting thing about it is that you go from the original movie, which came out in '82, so most of the people that saw that when they were kids were probably, you know, fifteen, sixteen years old, and now they're in their 30s. So instantly, CREEPSHOW appeals to the slightly older audience, but then the horror genre is so popular with younger people that we were able to grab multiple demographics."
Did Shudder impose any limitations or censorship for the first season?
"They would give notes on the scripts and some thoughts on casting. Ultimately what ended up happening was once the show was done, AMC watched a couple of the earlier cuts, and they came in and said, 'We really believe in the show. Do you need anything from us?' And I said, well, if you want to give us a little infusion of some additional money to sweeten things a little bit more and they did. It's unheard of that anybody ever watches what you're working on and says, 'Hey, we love this. Do you want more money?' I've never heard of that happening. Certainly not in my career. So I've felt very fortunate that AMC saw what we were trying to do and realized that with a little bit of extra money, we could just push the show up one more plateau."
In the first season, you had six episodes, two parts each. With such a short episode count, were there any stories or ideas that you didn't get to do or that you had to cut for time/budget?
"Yeah, there were a couple of stories. There were three stories that we had actually gone to script on. We ended up using two of them in the Heavy Metal Comic-Con adaptation. There was one called TWO FOR THE ROAD, which was our homage to THE RAFT. There was another script that was written by a friend of mine that was a little more Jordy Verrill-ish. It's about these two lunkhead type of guys whose job is it to guard a sinkhole. They realize that these creatures are coming out at night and feasting on cows and horses at local farms. There actually was another script that I had written that was based on a different Steven King story called Survivor Type. We realized once we went into production, there was no way we were going to be able to go to the ocean or even create this little desert island location where the story takes place."
The first season had a mix of originals and adaptations. How did you choose what made the cut?
"There are probably four or five stories that have been published and a bunch more, maybe seven, that were pitches…. It was really people submitting stories, rather than having stories that have been previously published. My goal was to make sure that we had enough variety that every time you watch an episode, you are getting a different meal. One would be pizza, and one would be Chinese, and then one would be Bob's Big Boy. I wanted there to be a different experience for every single story, and that was the goal."
The popularity of the first season got more writers interested. Will season 2 have a higher episode count?
"We read a lot of stuff for season two because, of course, we had an inordinate amount of submission from everybody that had seen season one, and was like, 'Oh my God, I love this, I want to be apart of this.' I was hoping that for season two, we would have gotten a bigger pickup, maybe eight or ten episodes. But you know, Shudder is still new to the game in terms of the amount of money they can to put towards multiple shows. So I was hoping that we would have gotten more, but honestly, trying to fit CREEP SHOW into the hiatus of THE WALKING DEAD, six episodes does fit well before I have to go back to my other job. I think the big difference is because I live on movie sets It really benefited me to be able to walk through with my production designer and walk the sets every morning and know what works and what doesn't. I'm very hands-on, and I know Aimee Holmberg, our production designer, was really grateful that I had so much experience in my career working on movie sets because it made the ability for us to have a shorthand that much better."
Were there any valuable lessons or experiences from THE WALKING DEAD that helped you on CREEPSHOW?
"If I hadn't been as intimately involved with THE WALKING DEAD in terms of being a producer and director and shooting the second unit and developing stories, I probably would not have been able to do CREEPSHOW. I took everything that I learned from collaborating with everybody from Frank Darabont to Angela Kang, and applied that to how I treated my crew here."
What can you tell me about the spider from season 2 that we saw on your Instagram?
"The spider seems to be as popular as Bob was in season one. In the effort to create variety in content and stories, there was one particular story that I'd been pitched that dealt with this exterminator who gets a little bit of comeuppance. When I read the original pitch, I felt like this was my opportunity to do our version of FOOD OF THE GODS. Like, who doesn't love the idea of giant insects or giant vermin in any capacity sort of turning and attacking? It's everything that I loved about movies when I was growing up, everything about the '50s sci-fi boom. I was really excited about that particular story and the puppets and the creatures that we've been able to create. And I'll tell you; it's hard for me to sit next to that thing without getting a little creeped out. I'll be honest."
CREEPSHOW Season 1 comes out on Blu-ray and digital May 19th (WATCH IT HERE – OWN IT HERE). You can sign up for Shudder's seven-day free trial HERE.