What Is Eli Roth Doing Making a Kids Show?
As the director of films like Hostel, Green Inferno, and Cabin Fever, Eli Roth is best known for making ultra-violent gory horror movies. So the news that he is now making a kids’ show is surprising, to say the least.
Get ready to be traumatized, kids!
Fright Krewe is a Dreamworks animated show premiering on Peacock and Hulu on October 2nd. The show is confirmed to have a ten-episode season and it’s not being explicitly marketed as a limited series so it’s possible that’s just the start. Also, despite premiering next month, the first trailer was only recently released on Peacock Kids’ YouTube channel on September 13.
SYFY describes the show as “Goosebumps meets Power Rangers,” following a group of misfit teens who must save the world from “vampires, rougarous, ghosts, monsters and demons.”
From the sound of it, this show looks to be what’s known as “gateway horror” or horror that’s digestible for kids (as well as adult scaredy-cats and other horror newbies) and may get them interested in the genre. Gateway horror often takes the form of young adult horror, a category made up of films like Coraline and Hocus Pocus. Even the first season of Stranger Things arguably counts, though I would argue that the later seasons have played the horror much more straight than the first season did.
In some ways, Eli Roth makes a lot of sense for this project, being a seasoned horror director who is known to sometimes dip into horror comedy with movies like Thanksgiving. If watchers are worried about his brand of horror being a bit much for kids, young adult author James Frey and Dreamworks Animation will likely temper some of his more extreme scenes.
(featured image: Dreamworks Animation/Peacock/Hulu)
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