Greetings Boils and Ghouls. Today we’re going to take look back at HHN 2019’s “Creepshow.” I’ve always been a big fan of this film since I first saw it back in 1982. When our good friend Greg Nicotero told us he was producing a new series...we jumped at the chance to be involved!
From the beginning, we new this maze was going to be a mash up of segments from the original film and episodes of the new series. We eventually settled on 5 stories. “Father’s Day,” “The Crate,” “They’re Creeping Up on You,” “Grey Matter” & “Bad Wolf Down.”
We also know we wanted to pay homage to the EC comic book style of the film/series, both with the set design and the exaggerated blue and red lighting. We also knew we wanted The Creep to be the “connective tissue” of the maze, just as he was in the movie/series...
So the concept for the facade was to make you feel like you were entering a giant Creepshow comic book, complete with advertisements of back issues. The entrance for the maze was a mail away coupon that some kid cut out! The pics below show the Creepshow-style lighting changes.
The prologue for the maze took you through the pages of the comic book, which foreshadowed the stories we were going to feature. It also gave you your first face to face encounter with The Creep...
Here’s a pic of the sculpt for The Creep along with his final mask and a pic of the character in action. He was based on the design of the character from the new series.
The first episode was “Father’s Day” which tells the story of Nathan Grantham who returns from the grave on Father’s Day to take revenge on his family! The Creep made a cameo in this scene, appearing as a video projection in the Grantham manor window...
Stepping inside the house you were attacked by Nathan several times, including watching him snap Sylvia Grantham’s neck and carrying her head on a tray like a birthday cake!
Here’s the original sculpt for Nathan Grantham, a pic of the final mask and a tons of his hands getting final paint and detailing.
“The Crate” is a story about a college professor who stumbles upon a long lost creature that’s been hibernating in a shipping crate in a remote part of the university...until it wakes up. This involved recreating the ape-like monster known as “Fluffy!”
Fluffy was a crazy hybrid character costume with the actor’s body incorporated into the crate! A lot of work went into recreating this nasty little guy but I was really happy with how he turned out!
Here’s some pics of Fluffy’s masks as they were being created. We also had to create his arms, claws, chest, legs, feet, etc. A whole bunch of different molds!
The last story from the original film we featured in the maze was “They’re Creeping Up On You,” a tale about a reclusive billionaire germaphobe named Upson Pratt who discovers his penthouse apartment has a bad bug problem...
This set has a very specific look in the original film and Chris and his team did their best to recreate it accurately. Here’s a few pics I snapped while it was being built and dressed...
The cockroaches were a combination of prop bugs and projection...here’s an example of how that all came together
The Creep also made a cameo in that scene, appearing on the computer monitor once the performer’s trigger was activated. This trigger also activated the exaggerated comic book style lighting in the scene.
“What’s the matter Mr Pratt? Bugs got your tongue?”
The last two sequences in the maze were pulled from episodes from the new series. It started with “Grey Matter,” a story about a man named Ritchie whose body is transformed by an alien entity after drinking a tainted can or beer! This set was my favorite in the maze...
There was so much detail in Ritchie’s apartment that was recreated by our scenic artists and prop crew, it really is worth a closer look...
And once again The Creep made a cameo, appearing on the TV screen...
And if you looked closely in the kitchen, you saw cans of the tainted “Harrow’s Beer.” And if you looked closely in the bathroom, you saw some of Ritchie’s unfortunate victims...slowly decomposing in the tub...
And then you met Ritchie...or what was left of him!
The last sequence in the maze was based on the episode “Bad Wolf Down,” the story American soldiers taking refuge in a Paris jail during WW2...a discovering an ancient curse that can help them defeat their adversaries!
There were 3 different types of werewolves in this episode and scene. A Howling like werewolf and a Lon Chaney Jr style werewolf that walked on two feet and an American Werewolf in London lycanthrope that walked on all fours. Here’s the sculpt of the Wolf Man character
And here’s some close ups of the mask for the Howling style werewolf...
And here’s some pics of the Howling style werewolf in action!
The maze ended with an epilogue similar to the 1982 film. You discover the Creepshow magazine the kid’s dad threw in the trash along with a poster for the show...and The Creep rips through the poster to attack you one last time!
Creepshow trivia - producer/ make up artist extraordinaire Greg Nicotero was intimately involved with the creation of the maze and let us use some of the original molds to bring the characters to life!
Greg also joined Chris and I, Slash and Eli Roth for a special HHN panel on Fan Preview Night. For those of you who got to join us, I think you’ll agree it was a night to remember!
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