Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
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DO NOT ENTER! Many of the techniques used in Fright Krewe can be found in action, adventure, and mystery animation. So what makes this series specifically horror? "Scary is part of the DNA of the show, as opposed to an element that pops in," says Lewis. Using this criterion, it's easy to see how skimpy horror animation offerings have been over the decades. Many credit Disney's 1929 Silly Symphony shorts The Skeleton Dance and Hell's Bells as being the first. While The Skeleton Dance can feel a little silly, Hell's Bells manages to disturb with its twisted imagery in the flaming depths of hell. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, released in 1949, also pulls off an eerie vibe with its depiction of the Headless Horseman, but otherwise, a lot of past animation that calls itself horror has been more playful than terrifying. Recently, TV series have dipped into realistic horror in hybrid ways. Among them are Gravity Falls, Harley Quinn, and Love, Death & Robots. Then there are shows like The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror specials, annual shorts that parody and reference classic horror films. And of course, for more than half a century, there has been Scooby-Doo. The ultimate in horror lite—more campy than creepy—Scooby-Doo was a reliable, safe cartoon staple when Mitch Watson was approached to do a reboot. This was around 2008. He'd been interested in horror for a while, he says, but no one would touch the kind of horror he wanted to do with a ten-foot pole. "And it's tricky when you mess with IP. People love what they love. [But] Sam Register had just taken over WB at that time and was looking to take a challenge, take a risk. … Sam was like, if you did do it, what would you do?" Watson was obsessed with the this page: The Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated team used classic horror film techniques like low camera angles to create a creepy mood. F E AT U R E Battlestar Galactica reboot, and if the studio would let him do something similar, turning a goofy old show into "something amazing," then he was in. Like the Fright Krewe team, Showrunner and Head Writer Watson and Supervising Producer and Lead Monster Designer Tony Cervone focused on character as they began developing the 11th incarnation of the beloved franchise: Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. "The moment we cracked the characters, and all the different permutations that were going on with them psychologically—that allowed the horror to really take on a different 28 KEYFRAME