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The Big Picture
- Collider's Perri Nemiroff sits down with the cast and creatives behind Peacock's new series, Hysteria! , at New York Comic Con.
- Bruce Campbell, Anna Camp, Julie Bowen, Matthew Scott Kane and David A. Goodman discuss their horror-comedy series about a small town experiencing violent occurrences amid the Satanic Panic of the '80s.
- During this interview, the Hysteria! team discusses how this original story was green lit, what drew the cast to it, and what brought them joy on set.
Few things make the horror community sing like a brand-new Bruce Campbell project. The legendary chin of Evil Dead brings consistent humor, horror, and unmatched style to everything he produces and appears in. After pizza-popping around the multi-verse, Campbell joins forces with co-stars Anna Camp and Julie Bowen in the Peacock horror-comedy series Hysteria!.
Created by Matthew Scott Kane, Hysteria! is set during the Satanic panic of the 1980s. A town is believed to be under occult influence after a beloved varsity quarterback disappears. Capitalizing on the town's Satanic fear, a high school heavy metal band decides to rebrand themselves as a "Satanic metal band," soon becoming targets of the town's heated witch hunt.
At this year's New York Comic Con, Collider's own Perri Nemiroff had the chance to sit down with cast members Campbell, Bowen, and Camp, as well as writers and executive producers Kane and David A. Goodman to talk all things Hysteria!. Together, the group discusses how crucial the band was to the rest of the story, the many challenges they faced throughout production, Campbell's history with Peacock and Universal Pictures, Bowen's "mom roles," and Camp's "fu*king genius" performance. For tons more on your next spooky season binge, check out the full conversation in the video above or in the interview transcript below.
'Hysteria!'s Journey to Screen Was a "Very Odd Experience"
PERRI NEMIROFF: Matthew, I have to talk about the development of the story. Can you tell me what idea #1 was, the thing that started this all, but then also, did you have a break-story moment, something you came up with that made you think, “This feels like a full series now?”
MATTHEW SCOTT KANE: That's a great question. Those are great questions. I'd say the very first scene of the first episode was the first thing I ever wrote for it. I wrote seven pages one day in 2016, and then I put it in a drawer, and I didn't come back to it for two or three years. Then, I think it was when I figured out the band component of this story, when I figured out that the protagonists should be this band and that the antagonist should be Anna. It all really just came together when it felt like there was a natural, easy protagonist to root for and someone who was ideologically opposed to them. It all just came together so quickly from there.
This is your first time writing a script that went to series. What was the biggest surprise in terms of that part of the process and what it takes to get a green light on something you wrote?
KANE: I had a very odd experience with this just because this doesn't happen to anyone, and I'm very well aware that this doesn't happen to anyone. This was the first thing that I wrote. It's not the first script I wrote, but the first thing that I wrote with the intent to go sell, and we sold it, and it got made. Granted, we changed networks, we went through a writers’ strike, a SAG strike, all of those things. I sold it in 2019, and here we are in 2024.
BRUCE CAMPBELL: Pretty quick turnaround.
KANE: [Laughs] Exactly. The hardest, most unexpected thing would be just that life happens so much once this opportunity presents itself. We lost two years of development on this because of COVID and because of the strikes, and we're still here somehow.
I'm glad you forged forward with it because, clearly, I like what I've watched quite a bit.
KANE: Thank you.
17:47
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David, I want to come your way now for a two-part question. You're so experienced, and this is Matthew's first time taking something to series. What is something about Matthew's original vision that you knew you needed to support as the producing veteran, but then also, what is some space in the story he created that you knew you could add your unique voice to?
DAVID A. GOODMAN: The thing I had to support is Matthew is a more talented writer than I am. I read that pilot script, and it was one of the best pilot scripts I've ever read. So, the idea that I might have an opportunity on this to work with Matt in this capacity was very exciting. Then in that pilot script, to answer the second part of the question, the thing that I really connected to was what's going on with the teenagers and their parents in there. That, “What is my teenager up to?” That horror movie that's playing in Julie’s character’s head of, “What is he out there doing?” The fact is, he's up to some bad shit. The bad communication and the misunderstanding, that was so real in that first episode. That was something I really connected to. As a parent, I thought that was something I could bring something to.
'Hysteria!'s Scripts Offered Its Cast Something Fresh
"I get offered a lot of mom roles."
Image via Peacock I love asking this question in general, but I'm especially excited to ask it here because, Bruce, you're the King of Horror, Julie, I just saw you in Totally Killer which is phenomenal, and, Anna, I've seen some comparisons to your True Blood character. When this opportunity comes your way, what's something about these roles that makes you say, “I have something to gain from this as an actor looking for new things and evolving my craft?”
JULIE BOWEN: I have no idea! I get offered a lot of mom roles. The joke is it's mom in the garden, mom in an alley, mom in space. There's always a mom.
ANNA CAMP: I would watch you in Mom in Space.
I would watch that, too!
BOWEN: When Matthew pitched it to me, and I read the pilot, I was like, “Where is this going?” I knew that this was not your average mom. The fact that she has a child and I have teenage kids, as well, that horror was easy to draw on in my mind. But also, you could just stretch your muscles a little bit and do something that I haven't done in a while and scream and cry and get scared and really live out something that felt, in a weird way, very grounded, especially when you've got teenage boys.
Image via Peacock CAMPBELL: The pedigree of this show is fabulous. There's no question about that, but that ain't gonna save a show. These two fine ladies, with all of their skills and abilities, are not gonna save a show that's poorly written. What got my attention was the way they've expanded a cop character, which doesn't always get the nuance, and I was like, “Hey, I could have a beer with this guy. Hey, maybe this guy could have an actual conversation.” He's not disrespectful to the teenagers, which I really like because normally they talk down to them, and they're like, “My way or the highway.” It's just refreshing, and that's what we look for is something a little bit different.
Look, aside from these fine ladies, it's Peacock. My wife always goes, “Do you wanna make a movie, Bruce, where nobody sees it ever and won't even get released, or maybe do something for Peacock where people might actually see it, like my relatives?”
BOWEN: Oh, wow. Your wife really laid it out.
CAMPBELL: Oh, she's just right there, man. And so I said, “Hey, Peacock…” I also have a pretty good history with Universal going back to Hercules [The Legendary Journeys], Xena [Warrior Princess], and Burn Notice. They don't know me anymore, but I remember them.
Peacock is crushing it with genre content right now between your show and Teacup which is also quite good.
7:53
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CAMPBELL: But that’s the universal thing. That’s the pedigree of Universal. They were the monster studio.
I'll always keep coming back for more for that reason.
CAMPBELL: Heck yeah!
CAMP: The True Blood character that everybody keeps referencing, I loved being on that show. It's a vampire, campy, fantastical HBO show, but I do think that every role I've ever gotten in my life has kind of prepared me for the next role. I feel like I fall in love with these crazy women. A lot of them are crazy, and they are wearing a mask of some kind, and they're projecting this sort of perfect image, but there's a lot of inner turmoil going on inside. I don't know why I'm attracted to roles like that, but they're complex and they're fun to play as an actor.
Image via Peacock Anna Camp's Performance Is "Fu*king Genius" in 'Hysteria!'
Julie Bowen and Camp discuss their camaraderie on set.
Image via Peacock I was just talking to a director who was emphasizing how good it made him feel to see his actors take such joy in their work on set, so for all of you, can you isolate a particular moment making Hysteria! that brought you the most joy as an artist?
BOWEN: I can, absolutely. In the finale, which was very, very challenging, my character is not altogether mentally present. I don't want to spoil it too much, but Anna had this massive monologue going on while I’ve basically got my eyes closed. It was so delightful to literally experience. She's a fucking genius. I literally had my eyes closed, and every now and again, I'd be like [opens her eyes], because she was finding new stuff in it every time. It was so joyful, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I don't know what's ever going to happen with this show, but this moment makes me so proud.”
CAMP: I will say in that moment, there was sort of this camaraderie. I didn't really get that many scenes with her until the very end, and there's a trust that you have to have, and it makes it so much easier when you're playing against, and we're supposed to not be getting along in extreme ways. There's a beauty when you can look at your fellow actor, and you can trust them, and you can go places with them. I really feel like I had so many moments, especially with you in that scene.
CAMPBELL: I would love to work with actors like them.
BOWEN: [Laughs] Well, you do!
CAMPBELL: I have.
CAMP: We had that great scene together!
Bruce Campbell Has a Warning for 'Hysteria!' Viewers
Image via Peacock CAMPBELL: Here's the deal: for me, it's little tiny pieces. There's a moment in the police station, he's behind the desk, and a woman who works here at the station was like, “Hey, chief, what if this is real?” And he finally has a moment of, like, “Well, if this is real, we are all cosmically screwed, and there is no going back.” And to hear that from the chief, you go, “Oh, he's worried, so that's bad.” You don't want the chief to worry because he's going, “Crap.” Because if it is real — the town has been taken over, and the teenagers are brainwashed — there's no going back.
CAMP: The stakes are high.
Hearing that concern from one of the more grounded characters …
CAMPBELL: It’s a problem!
It makes me nervous.
CAMPBELL: Yeah, you should be nervous.
Image via Peacock GOODMAN: Mine was really early on in the writers’ room. We had a writing staff that was all in on horror. They were all incredibly educated on everything about horror, Matt included. I was the least educated, and yet I was running the writers’ room, and at some point, I pitched something, and Matt and everybody reacted, and Matt said, “David, that's really scary.” That was, for me, like, “Oh, I guess I can do this!” So, that was my moment. It was the end of Episode 2.
KANE: My favorite moment was just walking onto the sets for the first time. This is something that's lived in my head for five years up until that point, and I could now walk through it. It was like Dorothy walking into Technicolor. It was the coolest feeling in the world.
Hysteria! is available to stream on Peacock now.
Hysteria! is set during the "Satanic Panic" of the late 1980s, follows a struggling high school heavy metal band that capitalizes on the town's sudden interest in the occult. This leads to a series of strange events, including murders and kidnappings, resulting in a witch hunt that targets the band.
Creator(s) Matthew Scott Kane
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