You would think that you wouldn’t put the big draw for people to tune into “The Simpsons” this weekend online before it airs, but then again, we don’t make those kind of decisions so what do we know. Either way, this Sunday marks another annual “Treehouse Of Horror” episode in the long-running animated series, and none other than Guillermo del Toro has conjured up a ghoulish opening sequence. And if you have better things to do on Sunday night, the good news is you can watch it right now.
And it’s a monster filled feast with Cyclops, Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon, kaiju, Hellboy and even characters from del Toro’s own “Pan’s Labyrinth” tossed into the lengthy 2-minute 45-second extravaganza.
“ ‘The Simpsons’ titles are so iconic and yet they’ve never been riffed in this vein,” del Toro explains at length. “I really wanted to land the connections between the [show’s] set pieces and the titles and some of the most iconic horror movies, and intersperse them with some of my stuff in there for pure joy. For example the idea that Ms. Krabappel could be outside the school with Alfred Hitchcock which is a reference to the sequence in ‘The Birds‘ that happens outside of the school in Bodega Bay. To use Chief Wiggum as the Cyclops from Harryhausen, dipping the [Lard Lad] donut in a water tank, to have the nuclear spill from Mr. Burns’ plant create zombies—all of this stuff seems to make sense to interconnect. If Homer really gets a radioactive isotope, he could turn into a reaper from ‘Blade.’ Or the famous shot that is always in the titles—Maggie driving and then you pull back and there’s Marge driving, right? But in this case Maggie is driving, and she’s driving the car from the horror movie from the ’70s called ‘The Car,’ which is one of my favorite guilty pleasure B-movies. And what if Lisa is in the music class, but she’s in the music class with every Phantom of the Opera ever made? It was a unique opportunity.”
Anyway, give it a look below and if you need to given a reason to keep watching the show next season, executive producer Al Jean reveals a character will be killed off. “We are doing this story for the same reason we do all others—we think it has a good emotional through line,” he told THR. “The story will be produced this year though it may air in season 26.” Anyway, check out del Toro’s work below. [EW]