An Interview with ‘Creepshow’ Showrunner Greg Nicotero

Caution: This interview contains spoilers for ‘A Creepshow Holiday Special’.
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If you’re fan of horror, or quality special effects in general, then the name Greg Nicotero is one that you know well. For Greg’s work with KNB EFX put him on the map as one of the finest special effects wizards in the business. But as his career has continued along, he’s been able to branch out into writing and directing and producing, thanks to his contributions to The Walking Dead.

Plus, he’s also expanded his resume to include showrunning since he is the driving force behind Shudder’s Creepshow. Where he has continued to work behind the camera to bring new tales of terror to life, and his most recent offering from this series, A Creepshow Holiday Special is streaming now exclusively on Shudder and Greg was nice enough to sit down with us to talk about that special, and all things Creepshow.

John Betancourt: What is it that brought about the resurrection of Creepshow in the first place?

Greg Nicotero: Oh, well, ironically, it sort of kind of fell into my lap. Oddly enough, I was doing press for The Walking Dead in Australia, and I was on my way back and I thought, “oh, I want to read something on the plane, something kind of fun.” And I found this book called Nights of the Living Dead. And it was a series of short stories that all took place the same night as Night of the Living Dead took place. And I was like, “that's so cool!” I mean, I'm a big fan of those sort of multiple universes kind of colliding scenario. So, I read a bunch of stories in there and Joe Lansdale had written one and George had written one. There was a couple of really cool ones in there. And I read one story that I really liked called ‘A Dead Girl Named Sue’. And I thought, “you know, I want to shoot that as a short”, like it's a really neat story.

Got back to L.A. and it turned out the guy who wrote it was/is the general manager of Shudder. When I reached out, they said, “oh, it's kind of funny that you called us because we're talking about developing Creepshow as a series and we need a creative partner.” And I kind of jokingly went, “Wait -- you mean like my Creepshow Creepshow?” I always feel like I have a little ownership over the original Creepshow because that’s the first movie set, I ever visited when I was a kid. And George Romero sort of gave me my start in the business. So. I kind of feel, you know, very connected to it, you know? So, that’s kind of how Creepshow got its second life.

John Betancourt: And it is obviously a very fruitful life. Because it has been well-received by audiences, and I guess really that's my next question. In that, what does it mean to you personally to have it be so well regarded and so loved, with only one season under its belt right now?

Greg Nicotero: Well, I put a lot of passion into it. I felt the responsibility, you know, I mean, this is George’s legacy. This is Stephen King's legacy. So, I entered into season one, really just wanting to say “thank you” to those two guys for creating such a unique piece of material. And, you know, the thing that I was the most proud of in season one was that everybody saw the passion on the screen. You know, it's definitely there. And, the exciting thing about season two is I feel like we kind of got our feet wet in season one and season two, we just kind of jump right into the deep end of it all.

John Betancourt: So, why do you think this series resonates so well in this day and age?

Greg Nicotero: Well, you know, there's a lot of great things about it. I mean, horror is always something that people are drawn to. I think the idea that it's an anthology horror series that you can experience in small bites, you know, we have two stories every hour. So each story is, twenty, twenty-one minutes and you get a different experience. It's like going to a restaurant and trying to decide what you want to order. And you want something really decadent for dessert and you want something really savory for a meal. So, the advantage of something like Creepshow is every single experience is different. One of them can be dark. One of them can be funny. One of them can be outrageous. One of them can be unsettling.

They're all different, but they all live within the same world. And to me, that's the most fun. And, you know, there's been a lot of anthology shows that have popped up in the last year. I think Creepshow was probably one of the first horror anthology shows to kind of ride this current wave. And I'm really proud of what we did. And I feel like the show has the fan following because they saw that it was coming from a place of respect. And, we really leaned into everything that George had embraced in the original movie, which was, you know, we wanted to recreate the comic book experience, come to life.

John Betancourt: Speaking of format and diversity, you made the very bold and awesome decision to make the Holiday Special a very lighthearted affair. What motivated you to have such fun with it?

Greg Nicotero: Well, this episode was really a standalone Creepshow segment, like when we were developing material, I was driving back to work on Walking Dead and I had downloaded this book of short stories by a guy named J.A. Konrath. So, this was two Octobers ago. Every day I would go to work, and I would listen to another short story and I listened to ‘Shapeshifters Anonymous’. And I absolutely fell in love with it. And I kind of thought, you know, nothing really lives up to the spirit of Creepshow more than this story, because it's outrageous. It's fun. It's scary. And it's a crazy, wild ride that you will never expect to see where you're going.

The fact that it just happened to be about Santa Claus and Christmas, that really didn't enter into why I love the story so much. I just thought it was a really fun idea. This guy wakes up and he realizes that he's eating things and he can't figure out why he finds the support group. And oh, yeah, well, there's a support group for shapeshifters. And then when you read the short story, when they say, “oh, we need to fight Kris Kringle and all his evil helpers”, the story just completely goes off in another direction. And I love that. I love when I read, or I watch movies or TV shows. I love going on a really fun adventure and a fun journey. And I really felt like ‘Shapeshifters Anonymous’ epitomized everything that I loved about being entertained when I'm watching something or reading something. So, the story just absolutely appealed to my sensibilities of having it be a little fun and a little lighthearted and having some great monsters in it. So, this was the first story that we optioned for season two.

Originally, if we were going to air this with other episodes, we would have split it up into two stories. So the the first half would have been part of one story and then the second half would have been the part of another episode. But, you know, as I was cutting it together and we were looking at the reception on the animated special, which people were really, really just happy to have something new out there to see. I had called Craig Engler and said, “look, you know, I think we would be doing the story a disservice to not try to get it out there for Christmas.” And so, the interesting aspect of this is we shot in September. We edited in October. We did the visual effects and the music in November, and we finished it in December. So, we were one of the first shows to go back into production and to be able to turn around material within three months and get that material out there for our viewers, that was something special for me and something very important for me.

And, you know, the idea that that it has a kind of a weird, sick and twisted Santa Claus holiday theme to it -- we would have still made the episode. It just so happened that everything kind of lined up for us to be able to release it for Christmas. And I'm happy to do it because, a lot of us are like, hey, maybe this will become sort of like a thing that people watch on Christmas Eve every year.

John Betancourt: I certainly hope so! Now, since you turned the episode around so quick, what kind of challenges did you face in putting it together? Since this is probably -- no, it is -- the most ambitious Creepshow episode out there.

Greg Nicotero: It is for sure. This is a big departure for me as a director because, you know, the majority of my directing career has been directing Walking Dead episodes. So, I really wanted to approach this, as if Tim Burton was directing this. I mean, I wanted it to have a very distinct visual style, so, I really leaned into the color changes. You know, if you really pay attention to the episode as things get weirder and weirder, the colors in the episode change and the angles change. And even the idea of being on Santa Claus’ face and seeing Bob transform as a shadow on the wall in the background, you know, I was really having a lot of fun with thinking as far outside of the box as I could. And I really enjoyed the process. You know, my actors were amazing. Adam was absolutely fantastic and pretty much game for everything and anything. And same with Anna. Those guys – when we were in quarantine and it was the end of July and we were starting about talking about filming again. They both reached out and said, “hey, guys, if ‘Shapeshifters Anonymous’  is still your first episode, we'd really love to do it.” So, I had two actors that were committed to doing it and we're excited about doing it. And I think their chemistry on screen really just makes the episode a whole different experience.

And one of the things that was really fun for me, I think, was a new another new experience, was sort of ad libbing. And you have these great comedic actors on set and allowing them a little bit of freedom to have fun. Adam and Anna and Candy and Pete and Frank Nicotero, you know, I gave them a lot of free reign to have fun. One of the lines that I laughed out loud at the most in the episode was something that that Anna had ad libbed. And it's after Weston realizes that he's a werewolf. And he says, “oh, I ate her and I peed on her hedges.” Like, it's just a goofy ad lib that Adam came up with and then Anna says, “Oh, I've done that” and I laughed so hard. And I think I looked at both of them after that take and I’m like, “I think I missed my calling. I should be directing comedy.” Because I laughed more during that episode, just giggling and having fun and allowing them to do what they do so well that it just was fun, you know, in a very different way. So, there's a couple more episodes coming up for season two that I definitely leaned into the spirit of this. I really do feel, like I said earlier, that this segment personifies what my desire is for Creepshow moving forward. And there's some outrageous episodes coming up that I'm absolutely in love with.

This interview was lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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