One 'Creepshow' Episode Features 30 Stephen King Easter Eggs [Set Visit]

The creators of the new Creepshow series coming the Shudder streaming service know their audience. They know they probably like the original 1982 movie from director George Romero and writer Stephen King. They know they're almost certainly major horror nerds, since they're paying for a horror-centric streaming service. So they're catering directly to them.

The new Creepshow is a show for horror fans by horror fans. And you know what that means. Easter eggs references. Lots and lots of easter eggs and references. Here's what we learned while visiting the show's Atlanta, Georgia set earlier this year.

Executive producer Greg Nicotero couldn't be more thrilled to be bringing Creepshow back to life, but his crew is equally enthusiastic. In fact, the new series continues a strange tradition that began with the original movie – there's an ash tray that appears in every single episode. But here's the kicker: it's the same ash tray that makes an appearance in every segment of the original movie. The literal same ash tray. Because they borrowed it from a collector and used it in the series:

[My] crew – Lucas [Godfrey], our prop maker, and Rene, and the set decoration people – they're sort of the next generation of nerds. I'm in this generation of nerds, and they're like two generations down from me. So they're like, 'F***, we're working on Creepshow!' We were always digging for easter eggs and things to find. Some of the props – there's this kind of famous prop from the original Creepshow which was an ash tray. That came about because they put it one episode and Nick Mastandrea, who was George's key grip at the time, would slide the ash tray into every episode as a joke. One of my best friends owns the original ash tray, and I said, 'Dude, you've gotta send it down.' So it's in every episode.

Beyond that, Nicotero made sure to fill the series with references to the work of Stephen King. After all, the beloved horror novelist wrote the screenplay for the original film and his short story "Gray Matter" serves as the source material for the segment Nicotero himself directed. Naturally, some of the references will be easier to spot than others:

[In] the Stephen King episode, there's probably 30 Stephen King easter eggs in there because I want people to look and then they'll watch it a couple more times. There's a lot of little things. Comic books, the voodoo doll – I forget half of them because we've been shooting for seven weeks. I'll probably go back and go, 'Oh shit, I forgot about that one!' But it's been fun because even the art department guys come and go, 'Look, we made this!' and I'm like 'That's great, I didn't think about that!' Even "The House of the Head," which is the Josh Malerman story, which Cailey Fleming stars in – who's in Walking Dead, she plays young Judith, she's f***ing unbelievable actress – it's a really great psychological thriller about a little girl who comes home and her dollhouse is haunted. She goes to the store and she's like, 'I need help,' and she goes to the store and gets a cop and puts the cop toy in and then the cop gets killed and she goes and gets an Indian. We did a little Chief Woodenhead from Creepshow 2 as the Indian. All that nerdy shit where we're doing it and I'm like, 'No one's ever going to notice this,' and on set, half the crew is like, 'Is that Chief Woodenhead?!' I'm like, 'How the f*** do you guys know that? This is great.' So there's a lot of that kind of stuff, and it's been fun.

Creepshow arrives on Shudder on September 26, 2019.