LVCRFT’s Halloween Album Boasts an All-Star Guest List of Horror Movie Icons. Here’s How It Happened
Billboard ·
The music video for "My Boo" featuring Scream star Jasmin Savoy Brown is out now.
Just in time for spooky season, LVCRFT is back. To celebrate their new album, Skeleton Sam’s Deadtime Stories , out Thursday (Oct. 1), the group released a music video for its single, “My Boo.” Scream star Jasmin Savoy Brown leads with a slinky vocal reminiscent of Dreamgirls and Little Shop of Horrors and teams up with horror director Tyler MacIntyre ( Tragedy Girls, It’s a Wonderful Knife ) for a deliciously frightening visual.
The video nails a “grime versus glam” aesthetic, with a story set in “a dirty, postapocalyptic world that you would see in something like George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead ,” MacIntyre shares. The macabre zombie design, built by makeup effects artist Megan Dupuy, draws inspiration from Romero films and Sam Raimi’s disturbing Evil Dead creations and perfectly contrasts “with the more polished, throwback jazzy glamour of Jasmin’s performance.”
“My goal was to have her start out as a grounded, sultry, lounge singer and grow to be almost maniacal as the song and story escalate,” he continues. “Jasmin is so talented and game to try anything, so we found a lot of fun moments with just her and a microphone.”
Currently starring in Hadestown on Broadway, Brown expresses wanting “to have fun riding the line between maintaining and losing control, with a hint of obsession” in the vocal performance. She adds, “I think the music video captured that really well.”
When meeting with LVCRFT, MacIntyre instantly gravitated toward “My Boo” and its clever lyrical twists. “It starts out so innocent and quirky. It’s a cute love song with a sly, macabre sensibility,” he says. “Simple and romantic, but it then grows to a possessive, doomed place.”
On set, the writer/director’s most cherished moment came when accomplished dancer Jamie Carreiro “improvised a gleeful medley of undead dance routines to the playback,” he remembers. “She had the crew and cast laughing so hard, and it really fit the story well. As if her decaying, scrambled zombie brain was remembering random dances from her past life.”
Shockingly, Halloween pop music remains largely an untapped market. LVCRFT – composed of heavyweight pop producers and songwriters Evan Bogart (Madison Beer, Lizzo), Amanda Warner (Carly Rae Jepsen, Kylie Minogue) and Peter Wade (Jennifer Lopez, Mark Ronson) – saw an opening and took it. The collective launched with 2019’s This is Halloween Volume 1 , introducing Skeleton Sam, a mystical being that quickly became the face of their music.
Like clockwork, the group has released an album every October and become staples on Halloween playlists. With Skeleton Sam’s Deadtime Stories , LVCRFT pulls out all the stops for a history-celebrating double-decker that brings together many of horror’s legacy performers. A Nightmare on Elm Street stars Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund reconnect on “Scream for Halloween,” while Ginger Snaps actor Katharine Isabelle dips her toe into music for the very first time, and Scream Ghostface voice actor Roger L. Jackson plays the album’s terrifying host.
But that’s not all, folks! Horror fans will also find Bruce Campbell ( The Evil Dead franchise), Jenna Davis (the voice of M3GAN ), Ernie Hudson ( Ghostbusters ), writer and director Mick Garris ( Sleepwalkers , Hocus Pocus ), Alyssa Sutherland ( Evil Dead Rise ), Cindy Weintraub ( Humanoids from the Deep ), John Kassir (voice of the Crypt Keeper, host of Tales from the Crypt ), director Robert Rodriguez ( From Dusk Till Dawn , The Faculty ) and David Dastmalchian ( Late Night with the Devil ).
Billboard spoke with many of the album’s horrifying guests about horror history, creating haunting musical characters, favorite Halloween memories and more.
How did Roger L. Jackson become the host of the album?
Amanda Warner : We made a dream list, and everybody on the album is very purposefully [selected]. We wanted a full spectrum of representation for our love letter to horror cinema and horror culture. I reached out to the agents cold, and we spoke to Roger’s agent and the agent was like, “Oh, this sounds like something that Roger would love.”
Peter Wade : He set up a call, and we were on the phone for like an hour and a half talking about spooky stuff. He’s of the culture. He’s one of us. He fully gets it. We wanted him to be the host, exactly like Vincent Price or Masterpiece Theatre .
Evan Bogart : The thing about Skeleton Sam is Sam doesn’t talk, so we needed a co-host. There was no better iconic voice actor that we thought would be the perfect fit than Roger.
Wade : He’s all over this record. He didn’t just voice the host. So, keep your ears peeled because he plays other roles. He plays animal roles. He’s a werewolf. Anytime you hear a werewolf on the record or a howl, that’s Roger. He’s a student of the radio. He’s got a great history and connection with that. We were so lucky.
Sweet Kristine becomes such a prominent character on the album. Where did she come from?
Wade : We did a bunch of songwriting sessions, and we had a whole cast of writers and a lot of new creatives. We worked with a producer named Sam Shrieve who’s now in the coven. His mom happens to be Cindy Weintraub from Humanoids from the Deep .
Bogart : We’re midway through the week, the week that we write the album. He goes, “Oh, my mom was a Final Girl.” We actually watched that movie while writing Deadtime Stories when we were in the sessions. At the end of all of the sessions, we thought that we should extend this incredible story and make a movie trailer that tells the story of this song as it was in a movie. It just snowballed into urban legend.
Warner : For the fan experience, this is absolutely going to transport them back to 1984 to Wes Craven’s masterpiece. That’s exactly what we want to do, to transport people with this album and the storytelling.
Mick, you made music with Horse Feathers in the ‘70s. What was it like returning to music?
Mick Garris : It was totally unexpected. Several years ago, we did a bunch of our old Horse Feathers demos and did overdubs and things and made our first album 50 years after the band was formed. It was thrilling to be invited to somebody else’s band and somebody else’s album, and to do a vocal, and to make it good enough that it’s included on the album.
You are an executive producer on this album, and writing and recording took place last fall. How did those sessions go?
Garris : I think it’s an exaggerated credit. [laughs] But they have this beautiful studio full of horror stuff, and it’s a gorgeous studio, one of the best I’ve ever recorded in. I managed to get Robert Rodriguez to come in and play guitar on our track, “Scream for Halloween.” My wife, Cynthia, plays some parts here. Being a part of something saluting my favorite holiday was really exciting, and something that’s going to reach a wider audience than Horse Feathers ever did.
Heather, you’ve done plenty of voice-over work, and you starred in a ZZ Top music video. Did it take much convincing for you to hop on your first album?
Heather Langenkamp : Not any convincing at all. I think everyone dreams of being on an album, and everyone dreams of having an opportunity to work with industry professionals who are gonna make you sound good and people who are really enthusiastic about the project. I felt that the minute I was asked — and Amanda will know this about me… I say yes instantaneously if she asks something of me. Being around these people, it’s a different kind of creative world. I’m used to the film world, makeup effects, and acting. The music world is different in so many ways and similar in others. My daughter and her husband are both musicians, so I feel like I really sop up a lot of energy from people in the music world.
Considering horror has reached a new level the past few years with films like Sinners , Weapons , Backrooms and Obsession , it’s strange that there is such a lack of Halloween pop music being made.
Garris : Where’s Bobby “Boris” Pickett when we need him? [laughs]
Katharine Isabelle : LVCRFT were so smart to find that pocket. Before this, if you asked me what Halloween music there is, I’d be like, “I guess ‘Monster Mash’ and ‘Thriller.’” Those would be the only ones I could think of. It’s great to really have fun, modern, high-quality Halloween spooky music.
Langenkamp : I’m tired of all the Halloween songs that they play on the radio ad nauseam. Usually, they’ll start the second week of October. And it’s not that they’re bad songs, I just think that especially when you’re my age, I’m in my sixties, you realize you’ve been listening to them for 50 years. It’s time for some new music, and I am so happy that someone is taking that mantle and doing it with all these incredibly talented songwriters.
John Kassir : During the time Tales from the Crypt was on the air, we put out the movie Demon Knight , which incidentally has one of the best soundtracks of any horror movie ever. I have people bring me just the soundtrack. It’s got amazing music on it and started a whole new culture of music and horror. I’ve been working a little bit of magic with Ice Nine Kills now. Spencer [Charnas] has gone out of his way to make every single one of his tracks in the vein of some horror movie.
It’s highly successful, not only because of his great music, but also the way he tips his hat to horror in everything that he does with it. They contacted me to do an intro for them as a track to use for their introduction on all the city tours with Metallica.
I worked with Bobby Pickett when he was alive. I played an Igor to his Frankenstein in the movie musical Monster Mash . It has Mink Stole, Sarah Douglas and Jimmie Walker. Bobby used to tell me his busiest time of year would be September, October, and November, and he would make his whole salary for the year during that time just doing concerts and stuff of the “Monster Mash” going around from town to town.
Bogart : There’s “Monster Mash” and a few songs that are actual Halloween songs, but most of the songs that have been dragged into the depths of the Halloween zeitgeist weren’t songs that were written for Halloween. They were just great songs. But thematically or sonically, they made people feel a certain way, like Halloween songs. It’s been 30, 40 years since you’ve seen a real onslaught of those songs.
Tyler MacIntyre : For years, any time I went to a Halloween party, there really wasn’t much difference in the music selection from any other time of year. You’d usually hear the “Monster Mash” thrown in, of course, and maybe John Carpenter’s Halloween theme if you’re lucky. That’s what I think is so great about what LVCRFT has been doing. Every album raises the bar, and now you can almost fill the entire holiday with just their stuff. I’m very excited to see how Deadtime Stories hits, especially since they’ve got so many horror legends involved. It’s been so impressive to see LVCRFT really take over that space in the last few years.
The album serves as a snapshot of horror icons, from Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund and Bruce Campbell to modern stars such as Alyssa Sutherland and Jenna Davis.
Garris : Halloween has always been intended for the younger set. Maybe when it was Samhain, that might have been a different story, when witches were hung or stoned to death in Salem. It’s always got to have something fresh, something new, something young about it. It’s embraced by the young, and it’s always sad when you outgrow the magic of Halloween.
Isabelle : This might be the most excited I’ve ever been about anything in my entire life. [laughs] I did not think this was a real request. I thought for sure I was being scammed, but I was gonna go for it anyway. It’s definitely been an absolute number one top secret fantasy of mine to be able to sing. I only ever sing in my truck, and I’m pretty terrified to sing in front of people after some traumatizing auditions when I was young. It was an incredible experience to work with amazingly talented, award-winning professional musicians. It was not something I ever thought would happen to me.
Langenkamp : When I go to horror conventions, Alyssa is so popular. You really get a temperature of who’s really popular at the moment when you go to these conventions because you can tell by the length of their line or just how ardent people are to get there and make sure they’re on their schedule to get their autographs. As soon as her movie [ Evil Dead Rise ] came out, it was instantaneous. Overnight, she was one of the favorite people around.
Alyssa Sutherland : Just being on an album alone is a pinch me moment. I don’t think I ever in my wildest dreams thought that was a thing that I would do in my lifetime. Even having the opportunity to be on an album, in general, is massive for me, but to be in the company that I’m with is incredible.
I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m a sing-in-the-shower kinda gal. Peter and Amanda were incredible. They made me feel so comfortable and welcome when I was there recording “The Other Side,” and just really guided me through everything. It’s a daunting prospect when I’m not at all a trained singer in any way. I was just hoping I was good enough. I was like, “I think I can carry a tune,” but that’s it. I just thought it was such a cool opportunity when it came my way. I was like, “Yeah, I wanna do that.” And then immediately I was terrified.
Kassir : It wasn’t as mainstream when we came out with a lot of these characters and a lot of this work. The horror fans are the ones that have kept it alive. Going to all these horror conventions and personal appearances over the years, I talk to people about the Crypt Keeper and keep him going, and then I’ll see all my other horror heroes there. We all came on the scene where horror lovers loved us, especially around Halloween, and now it’s become such a mainstream genre that our characters are coming back from the dead, if they didn’t already. I have a whole new fan base that’s been growing. To include that as part of a music soundtrack is a great marriage.
Davis : It’s truly such an honor to be included amongst so many horror icons. When I got approached, I didn’t even realize how many horror icons were gonna be a part of this project. Now, looking back and just seeing the whole list, it is truly a pinch-me moment, and I feel so honored to be included. You get so much variety on this album. Everybody craves this type of music, and I’m so excited to be a part of an album that can just embody spooky season, but also just something that people can listen to even when it’s not Halloween.
Kassir : I did the song “Dead Heart Beat” for LVCRFT as a single track two years ago, and now, it’s included on the album as a remix. I love the remix. I would’ve loved to have done it with the Crypt Keeper voice, but not owning the voice myself, I came up with something that was a classic horror voice that I had grown up with that probably influenced my Crypt Keeper voice.
They had sent me some stuff, and then I wrote some of my own little creepy things to add to it. To my delight, they used some of that, too. Each one of those tracks has its own hook. I’ve always thought “Thriller” was just unbelievable. I’ve always wanted to get together with another artist and do a new version of “Thriller” with the Crypt Keeper doing Vincent Price.
“Sweet Kristine” feels very inspired by Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II . It has a very distinctly ‘50s pop sound, in the vein of Patti Page. What did you bring to the performance?
Isabelle : It was so funny because they approached me through an Instagram DM, and I never check my DMs. There’s always something weird in there I don’t wanna see. Since then I’m like, “Yeah, I gotta check that more often.” But I sort of was also like, “Am I being trafficked here? There’s no way this is a real thing.” But sometimes you just gotta check those DMs, and you gotta do a little research. To have a song on an album made by these incredible producers with all these [icons], I could cry about it. It’s gonna be the song that plays at my funeral.
When I was going through listening to what songs I could sing, as soon as I heard the first couple seconds of this one, I was like, “Oh, this is mine for sure.” It really reminded me of two of my favorite movies, Ginger Snaps and The Good Son with Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood. Macaulay’s just this little psycho kid just trying to murder people for no reason. I really wanted it to feel ethereal and sort of hauntingly beautiful and a bit tongue-in cheek. It’s a pretty saucy song about shoving the popular girl off a bridge, but I wanted it to feel like a love letter to her.
I think we recorded it in under two hours. I’d literally never recorded anything before. I was so nervous, and they had to walk me through the most basic steps of understanding the process. They knew they had to support me a bit, and they were so great in doing that. I didn’t even know how much I wanted to hear my voice in the headphones as I was singing. That’s all stuff I wasn’t used to. I sort of blacked out the whole time in excitement and terror. [laughs]
This song has a companion track, “Sweet Kristine Movie Trailer,” featuring Michael-Leon Wooley, star of Hotel Transylvania 2 and AJ and the Queen , that comes before your song. There’s such a wealth of exciting guests on the album.
Isabelle : When I first listened to it, I didn’t know what was coming next. Everything is so different. It just feels like the perfect soundtrack for spooky season. I’m gonna start playing it every day starting on October 1st. My mom already makes me play my song every morning pretty much. She’s like, “Oh, we haven’t heard it today.” I’m like, “OK, Mom, gotcha.” [laughs]
“Scream for Halloween” feels as though Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund are resurrecting Nancy Thompson and Freddy Krueger. And it’s very cool that their collaboration coincides with the news that A Nightmare on Elm Street is returning with a new film.
Garris : There’s always been a crossover between rock n’ roll and horror anyway. They’re both disreputable. They’re both things that people make stuff that they don’t want their parents to like.
How did you convince Robert Rodriguez to play guitar on this song?
Garris : It was a real crapshoot. He’s a friend, but he lives in Texas. I said, “I know you play a mean guitar. Would you like to do it on a record with these people?” And he got really excited about it and kicked its ass. But mostly, the LVCRFT team themselves are much better connected in the music world than I am. But they did ask me for recommendations and contact numbers and things like that for other people. So, I guess I’ll take that executive producer credit. [laughs]
Heather, what was it like reconnecting with Robert Englund for this track?
Langenkamp : Well, we were all brought into the project at different stages. Mick was first, and he laid down his tracks. Then, I was asked to be part of that song. I mean, I’m not sure if this is 100% accurate, but I was asked to come in and do the female part on that same song. Then, Amanda and Pete just got up a lot of courage and asked me if I would ask Robert to be part of this song. It was hard for me because I get asked by so many different people in the world, “Oh, can you get this to Robert? Will you ask Robert for this or if he’ll give me a call.” I get asked several times a year by somebody if I will help them get something to Robert or intervene for them or be an interlocutor for their project. I usually have to just politely say, “Look, I really don’t have any power in this. I’m not really the person to approach to get something to Robert.”
But this was different because I had already laid my track down and I thought, “Oh, Robert should be on this.” I really felt that there was this place in the song where his voice would be really perfect, and Amanda and Pete had suggested it. I felt that it was something that was going to benefit all of us. So, I played Robert Englund the song, just the demo, in a really loud waiting room while we were waiting for photo ops at a convention in New Jersey.
I’m just like, “This is the song, Robert. Isn’t it cool?” And Robert was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s talk about this later.” He kind of dismissed me but got to hear the song and just how catchy it was, and he liked it immediately. Later, when I let a couple weeks go by because Robert is so very busy, I let things die down and then I went back to him and I just said, “I think it would be really great if you would help us out on this song.”
Of course, I appealed to his love of the Vincent Price-y kind of voice-over work that he’s so good at. He does a lot of that in the industry. I also thought that there are so many people on this album that if he’s not on it, it’s gonna look conspicuous that he’s not there. I have to give credit to his wife Nancy with helping make this happen.
The last line of “Scream of Halloween” goes to Robert Englund: “Welcome to my nightmare.” You half expect him to say, “Welcome to my nightmare, b-tch” in the vein of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Freddy vs. Jason .
Langenkamp : There’s probably a version like that out there. I think he recorded a lot of different versions, but maybe that was a little bit too on the nose for the nightmare, and it might even be copyright. Also, you don’t wanna call out the Freddy character too much, because this is a new enterprise. It’s a new group of characters. Even though, we’re all thinking about Freddy, I don’t know if we should leave only thinking about Freddy.
Warner : I had to edit it out. [laughs] We had edited it out just because it’s a clean record. We didn’t ask for any of that. He just did it.
Bogart : He brought so much to it. Once he was on the mic, it was like a full-body performance. It wasn’t just him talking into a mic. It was like arms and clutching fists. We were watching a master at work performing. It was incredible.
Davis : I had been presented with a couple of different songs. But after talking with them and sharing what my musical background was, they suggested that I actually write for the album. I went out to L.A. and had just a blast. They really enjoyed that I have more of a country sound and the type of music that I release is more country-based. They wanted to kind of take that in with M3GAN’s creepiness and bring it all into one. It still has elements of M3GAN, but it has elements of Jenna at the same time. When I got approached for it, I didn’t know if they wanted me to sing like M3GAN or if they wanted me to sing like Jenna, because there are differences between the two. We also wanted it to feel like I was coming out of a record player that you would find in a cabin in the woods. We wanted it to feel historic but spooky.
Does this project inspire you to do more music?
Garris . No. I’m 74 now. I went and saw 10cc. Graham Gouldman is 80 years old, and he was great. I couldn’t see myself up there strapping on a Stratocaster and singing and being good enough for an audience of 5,000 people.
Isabelle : I’m a small percentage more confident in my singing voice now. It’s something I would absolutely love to do, especially with this kind of team that is so knowledgeable and supportive and just made me feel great about it. And then the end product… I was screaming.
Sutherland : I don’t know about that. [laughs] I love the song. I love how it turned out. If I were like 18, it would be a different story, and I think maybe I’d be like, “Oh, maybe this is an avenue I could go down.” But at this point in my life, I’m very appreciative and grateful of this opportunity and I’ll probably just go back to singing in the shower and in my car all alone. And maybe at karaoke every now and then.
John Carpenter, 78, seems to be enjoying himself when he hits the road with Daniel Davies and his son Cody.
Garris : They’re not just great for movie people, just plain great. You see Carpenter, who’s very cynical, smiling and chewing gum while he’s playing, and it’s so delightful. I’ve known John since 1978, and to see him that relaxed and in a groove and doing what he loves, he’s gone from filmmaking rock star to real live rock star. He’s one of the most successful filmmakers in the genre, so he can do whatever he wants, and to be whatever he wants to be. To actually see him live out that dream is so rewarding, and it just makes me smile.
Garris : Some of them are recent, and some of them are childhood. My least favorite is being beaten up as a kid going trick-or-treating by the older kids, which is what Hocus Pocus was about. More recently, we actually shot an episode of Once Upon a Time that takes place on Halloween, on Halloween. We were in this neighborhood where everybody was in costume and doing these scenes, and it just felt so otherworldly. It is definitely my favorite memory. You know, I’m not in the horror business because I think it’ll make me money. I’m in the horror business because horror chose me, and I woke up that way. I came down the chute loving Boris Karloff.
Isabelle : Halloween is usually me working on a set covered in blood anyway. I live in Canada, so I never got to wear cute outfits. It would be like, “Oh, what works with a parka?” [laughs]
Sutherland : I grew up in Australia, and we didn’t celebrate Halloween in Australia when I was a kid. It wasn’t something we did. They do now a little bit. Since I moved to the States, that’s changed. I think social media has made the world a lot smaller, and people like to be able to post pictures of themselves dressed up. That’s probably why it’s moved to Australia now. My favorite costume ever was I dressed up one year as one of the MythBusters who had blown himself up. I had intestines coming out of me.
Bogart : In 2018, I totaled my car and broke my back. I couldn’t go that weekend to Horror Made Here, and I was completely distraught. But I promise you that the next weekend we were at the Warner Backlot Experience, which really doesn’t exist anymore, and Horror Nights [at Universal] and all the different things that we did with me in a wheelchair with Amanda pushing me around. I was not going to let that keep me down. That’s one of my greatest Halloween memories ever.
Wade : My greatest Halloween memories are of me and my mom when I was a little kid, throwing Halloween parties for all the kids at the school. It’s only beaten by the memories now of me decorating with my kids, of passing that on and them being spooky lovers — just sharing that experience from generation to generation. That’s what LVCRFT is doing with music
Warner : I grew up in the high plains of North Dakota on a farm, and my dad was a musician. He had bought what’s basically a harmonizer unit so you could sing through it and you can harmonize. But if you detune it, it makes a really scary voice. It’s the ‘80s when you trick or treat, and you’re in a truck. Then, you drove from farm to farm, which were miles away. My dad would just scare the crap out of everyone. We’re obsessed with horror. I just grew up with the culture.
Wade : When I think about being a kid on Halloween, there’s two things. One is that my grandmother sewed me a cape, a Dracula cape, and I was Dracula every year until I was old enough to be like, “Maybe I should switch it up.” I was looking through some stuff, and in this box, there I am with my hair slicked back and the plastic fangs and the cape. I would trick or treat until literally you had to pull me off the street. I was obsessed with eating the candy, but I had a method. I laid it all out, and I decided which I liked the most and wanted to save. I would sort my candy, and I would save the best for last. My sister would get all mad because she would go through all of hers, and we’d get in a fight. Then, you had to check everything and make sure there were no razor blades in your Reese’s Pieces. I think I read somewhere that never happened.
Davis : I would say in the last couple of years, going to Halloween Horror Nights has been so much fun. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed getting scared. When I was young, obviously, trick-or-treating and carving pumpkins and all those fun things that you grow up with as a child are always just so sentimental and sweet. But I think as I’ve gotten older, feeling the thrill of Halloween a bit more, especially jumping into the Universal universe, it’s been really fun to be able to go to Horror Nights each year and see how they just make it better and better.
MacIntyre : For me, it’s pretty simple. Watching a marathon of horror movies in somebody’s basement with friends. A lot of films I watched for the first time in those settings are a big part of why I was so drawn to telling my own spooky stories.
Director John Fawcett gave an interview with Dread Central , and he updated fans on his Ginger Snaps TV series passion project. Katharine, what have you heard about that project?
Isabelle : I know it’s always been in the back of his head since we shot the first film. I know that’s always been a goal and a fantasy of his to continue that in a series. Throughout the years, it’s been closer to happening and then further away from happening and then closer again. No one ever tells me anything about anything ever. [laughs] I’m the last to know about stuff like this. I didn’t know we were doing a Ginger Snaps sequel until a random fan was like, “I can’t wait for the second one.” I was like, “OK, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” [laughs] They tend to have that all figured out before anyone ever contacts me about anything, but obviously I have no idea how that would work if I had any involvement, but I would be there in a heartbeat and I would support anything in the Ginger Snaps universe.
Heather, do you know anything about the return of A Nightmare on Elm Street ?
Langenkamp : You know, these deals are announced in the news, and when I kind of probe and see what’s happening. A lot of times at this point they’re headlines that don’t have a lot behind them yet. There’s a lot of pressure to seem like something’s really going on. There’s these two tracks because of the domestic rights and the international rights. It’s gonna make the process extremely difficult. I don’t actually hold out much hope for it in my heart of hearts. I wish I could, but I just feel like it’s so complicated, and lawyers just really make life difficult.
If they pulled a Halloween (2018) and did a legacy sequel to the original 1984 film, would you come back?
Langenkamp : Don’t all of us have a really great Nightmare on Elm Street script in our pockets? I do. [laughs] We love it so much that we can think of a million different scenarios that would make great movies. That’s the truth. I’ve heard 20 or 30 people tell me their version of what they think A Nightmare on Elm Street next [film] should be, and they’ve thought about that universe so hard. They’ve taken care of all the details. It’ll be really interesting to see what they finally settle on.
Along with this album, John, you will also be hosting AMC’s 30th Anniversary of Fear Fest this October.
Kassir : I’m very excited about that. I’m still recording some of the stuff for them. They wanted to not only use some of the old footage and cut it together, but they also wanted to do something with a puppet. They got Greg [Nicotero] to direct these episodes with a new Crypt Keeper puppet, so that we could actually do new tracks. I’ve done a lot of Crypt Keeper stuff over the years, but very little to new stuff with new footage of the Crypt Keeper. Some people were alarmed that the puppet was a little different than the original Crypt Keeper, but when you see him moving and shot in motion, it smacks a lot more.
It’s not an easy task to try to recreate what was done at that time with talent and money, which is just not something that was available to us. Whatever we wind up with through this Fear Fest season is absolutely the best we could do in the time we had to do it in.
Are there any plans to revive Tales from the Crypt ?
Kassir : We’ve always wanted to. Once the rights lapsed on it, we were never able to get them back from EC Comics. I know that they had tried to sell them to other entities, and that might be why we weren’t able to get them. It always has to do with money and availability. But ultimately, anybody who wanted the rights or paid for the rights were upset to find out that the Crypt Keeper was part of the comic book, but our version of the Crypt Keeper was only part of our version of the show, and we’re the only ones who would have access to that version of the Crypt Keeper.
That’s why it never had an opportunity to expand into new episodes. Whether we could reproduce it today or even afford to reproduce it today, those guys were big producers. They could get a lot of favors, and they did in order to get it done. Nobody would be happier than me.