In CREEPSHOW Season 4, based on George A. Romero’s iconic 1982 horror-comedy classic, a comic book comes to life in a series of vignettes, exploring terrors ranging from murder, creatures, monsters, and delusions to the supernatural and unexplainable.

Leading up to the release of the new season, Nightmarish Conjurings’ Shannon McGrew spoke with Kailey and Sam Spear, otherwise known as the Spear Sisters, about their segments The Hat, which centers around a horror novelist whose agent offers him help to overcome his writer’s block, and Grieving Process, which center’s around a husband who tries to take care of his wife after she’s been attacked.

During their chat, they discussed everything from the central themes surrounding their segments, how they tackled practical effects to magnify certain feelings in The Hat and Grieving Process, and the creative choices they made to capture the essence of their segments.

Thank you both so much for taking the time to speak with me today! To start things off, can you tell us a little bit about your segment and the central themes surrounding it?

Kailey Spear: The Hat is about a writer who is struggling with writer’s block and his agent gives him a hat with the hopes that will unclog the writer’s block, but it comes with some unexpected consequences.

Sam Spear: Grieving Process is about a wonderful, happy couple who one day the wife is attacked and she starts to become different. She’s kind of a shell of who she used to be and her husband is trying to figure out how to bring her back, how to be there for her, and how to help her. In doing that, the one thing that he finds to help her is something that also sort of transforms him as well.

Kailey Spear: The Hat definitely tackles the idea of wanting to take the easier route but then that not necessarily being the best route. Grieving Process is a darker one. The Hat is quite light and fun and Grieving Process is definitely darker. That one deals with a wife being attacked and becoming something, and adjacently the husband also becomes something through this event.

Kailey Spear: When we were reading the two different scripts originally we immediately felt different textures and different vibes from the two of them. So The Hat definitely felt lighter and had that comedic edge, that quirk, that pop.

Sam Spear: Immediately, we felt this quicker pace to it and that it would suit this quick-timing comedy that kind of lifted off the page for us, whereas, with Grieving Process, we were immediately hit by it being darker. We saw it as this noir and something that would help tell the story. It was interesting to get two very different ones, but so fun to be able to play with those very different tones.

How was it working with practical effects and what challenges did you face when incorporating them into the story? 

Kailey Spear: We love the practical effects. It was so much fun to play with.

Sam Spear: It was a dream. The work that they did on it too was just amazing, so beautifully done.

Kailey Spear: The challenge is it really just takes time. But it’s worth it.

Sam Spear: Blood can be messy.

Each segment of the anthology has a relatively short run time. What’s the process like in making sure you’re showcasing a compelling narrative in the short amount of time given? 

Kailey Spear: With each portion that we shot we wanted to make sure that we really knew with each frame why we were picking a certain frame and how that contributed to the storytelling. So even though it’s short, we tried to pack as much as we could into the frame to tell the story.

Sam Spear: The script helps us understand who our characters are. Our actors we can get close to them and they’ll lift it off the page, but then also using the camera to help understand kind of internally what’s going on with our characters just a bit more. When you pull it all together hopefully then you can more quickly understand the characters who you’re dealing with and feel what they’re feeling.

Kailey Spear: An example of that was Jay (Ryan Beil) in The Hat when he’s speaking to his agent at the beginning and he’s just feeling defeated, he’s feeling small. So we’ve squashed him into the side of the frame and put him in a very low chair so he’s sitting there feeling small. Then later on in the episode, when things change for him, we got him up. He’s towering over and he’s got this power. Things like that help tell the story. With Grieving Process, [we were] really using that darkness of the character going into the dark and that’s what his journey is.

During filming, what were some of the fun moments you all had on set?

Sam Spear: It was so fun working with the creature in The Hat and seeing what they did with it. It was wonderful.

Kailey Spear: It was really fun in Grieving Process to see the stunt performers work. Falling downstairs, leaping through the air.

For my last question, I want to base it on The Hat which focuses on having a good luck charm. Do you have anything that you consider to be your good luck charm?

Kailey Spear: We haven’t found ours yet and we keep on looking.

Sam Spear: We have our dog who’s sitting right here with us.

Kailey Spear: When we were shooting, even if we got back super, super late we would have a little snuggle with him at the end of our day and tell him how the day went.

CREEPSHOW Season 4 is now available exclusively on Shudder. To learn more about this latest season, check out our review here.

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Shannon McGrew

Founder/Co-Owner at Nightmarish Conjurings

Shannon is the Founder of Nightmarish Conjurings and a lover of all things horror and haunt related. When she's not obsessively collecting all things "Trick 'R Treat" related, or trying to convince everyone that "Hereditary" is one of the greatest horror films ever made, you can find her designing interiors for commercial restaurants. An avid haunt fan, Shannon spends the entire year visiting haunts and immersive experiences throughout the Southern California area and hopes to one day design her own haunted attraction.

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