September 25th, 2023 
Jackson Murphy 
The new DreamWorks Animation series Fright Krewe is the studio’s TV foray into the horror genre. Film director Eli Roth (whose credits include “Hostel”, “The House with a Clock In Its Walls” and the upcoming “Thanksgiving”) and author James Frey (of A Million Little Pieces and I Am Number Four) crafted the show’s concept — about five kids on a life-changing adventure in New Orleans, with Voodoo at its core — and took it to DWA. Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco serve as showrunners and executive producers of Fright Krewe, which premieres next Monday October 2nd on Hulu and Peacock. As millions of people start decorating their houses for Halloween, the timing of the show’s debut is perfect, as they explain in this Animation Scoop Q&A. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: Joanna, what do you love about this time of year? It’s Fall. Autumn. Spooky Season. And having a show like this come out. What excites you about this time of year?
Kristine Songco: You asked the right person! (laughs)
Joanna Lewis: This is my favorite time of year! I am about as basic as they come. I’m from the east coast. I miss the changing of the leaves and the crispness of the air. I have my house decorated from Labor Day on. All of my Halloween decorations are up! (laughs)
JM: Wow. You’re like who I’ve been seeing as I went around [a week ago] Saturday. It was a nice day. Went to some yard sales. And everybody’s got their decorations up already!
JL: That’s me! That’s me! “Bath and Body Works”… I feel like I should probably get paid sponsorship because I talk about their candles all the time. (laughs) This is almost like a way of life.
KS: It will forever be Joanna’s season to me.
JM: (laughs) So Kristine, I’ll ask you about the show and this premise. A group of teens discover quite a lot. I’ve never seen a show or a movie where teens go to a graveyard and they get SUCH an experience, as what I watched on the first two episodes of “Fright Krewe”. What excites you about what these teens experience and what they’re gonna get up to over this season?
KS: Oh my gosh. Well, if teens are gonna get in trouble by going into a graveyard somewhere, it’s gonna be New Orleans. That is ripe for story. And I’m excited for everyone to meet these characters and to do a deep dive into the world that we’ve built. We haven’t really seen a lot of shows that involve Voodoo to this extent. I’m excited for people to get to know that. And it’s kind of this show that walks this bridge between something that’s a little bit… older than Scooby-Doo but for people who are starting to get into horror but not quite ready for slasher, gory films.
JM: That makes sense. And as I was watching it, I felt the Scooby-Doo vibes, but also, Joanna, with the DreamWorks animation properties of “Madagascar”, “Over the Hedge” and “The Bad Guys” — I think about ensembles. What stands out to you about the ensemble that you present here that’s now part of the DreamWorks catalogue?
JL: When we started the show, we started with horror trope stereotypes of the characters. And we were really interested in, “How do we nuance these familiar character tropes and make them more unique, special and specific to this world and universe?” One of the coolest things about our kids is that even though they don’t come from the same place or background, they figure out a really cool way to work together. Each one is kind of a complement or a necessary piece for the others.
JM: It’s a good team. And also there’s some emotion and struggles with the high school experience. The past friendship Soleil and Missy had… Kristine, how did you want to showcase that? Friendships are challenging and difficult. There are highs and lows. How did you want to present that and the high school experience?
KS: We wanted to have a good mix: people who know each other and have this past drama between them and people who are just getting to know each other amidst this crazy situation that’s put upon them. Working together becomes so essential to saving the world. There’s so much that they have to learn. It is set in high school. There’s some high school drama. But things become bigger. (laughs)
JM: Right. The way that these powerful spirits are immersed in these characters is so visually interesting. Joanna, there are really interesting moments in this, like a purple vortex.
JL: Maybe, one of our characters, gets to go to the Shadow Realm. It’s a space between an afterlife and the living, essentially. So we needed a visual way to represent what that looks like. It’s like a superimposed layer upon our world. It’s like a ghostly realm. How do you showcase that? We did a ton of research into… colors used. We have purple energy. Shane Acker and Peter Markowski were instrumental in the visualization of our entire world. They helped us shape what it’s gonna look like. How do you have somebody who’s able to see what’s happening in the real world with all of us, but they’re also seeing all of the undead aspects of the world? And they can’t interact with the living when they’re interacting with the un-alive. So doing that was a really interesting challenge and very cool to come-up with different visual solves to all of those situations.
JM: And then off of that you have to come-up with moments and figure out if they’re too scary or not scary enough. Kristine, where is that line of going too far or feeling too restrained?
KS: Our job was always to try to push the line and see how far we could go and take things — and then have someone else tell us to walk it back. (laughs) And also to see how the artists decided to handle this. The stakes in our show are life and death. We can’t show a lot of blood on screen. We have to have creative solutions for how to portray that and still make the stakes feel real. Our artists did a great job. This is something that happens off screen. You know exactly what happens. The sound design plays a big part in it. It’s been fun doing our sound effects and finding the right squishy gross sounds. Shout-out to BoomBox. They are our partners in grossness.
JM: (laughs) And Joanna, through this and the “Haunted Mansion” movie that came out this summer, I’ve learned a lot about New Orleans and the city’s influence on the spirit world. What kinds of research did you do… to honor what has happened and what goes on in New Orleans?
JL: Great question. Right before we actually got asked to work on this, I had gone on a trip to New Orleans and had done the vampire, graveyard and Voodoo tours. I had learned that I had wildly wrong notions of voodoo based on what I’ve learned in movies. When we got asked to do this show and were told it was going to be set in New Orleans and have a Voodoo backdrop, I got really excited. “We have to go!” Kristine and I are gigantic nerds. We love mythology. I’m also a huge theology nerd — things that people believe in. If you have a story that inspires generations of people to believe in something, that fascinates me as a concept.
We did an insane amount of research, but we also knew that we were going to need consultants on this show. Voodoo is an oral tradition. There’s no Bible or Quran or anything like that. You need to speak with actual practitioners in addition to what information you can find in books and online. The majority of the practice isn’t written out for you to consume. We wanted to be as respectful as possible and present Voodoo in the light that I think it really deserves to be shown in. It’s a beautiful and vibrant religion.
JM: And what you learned — and your enthusiasm for it — I can tell goes into the character of Soleil. She’s very interested in all of this. Kristine, that’s a lot to put into your lead character.
KS: We conceived Soleil as someone who’s very happy with who she is. She loves herself. She’s happy with herself. But she still has a journey to go on and something to learn over the course of this show. It was fun having a character who’s so formed but still had a way to go.
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