Even if you haven't watched The Simpsons since about 2006 due to how bad it got, make time for opening sequence from the upcoming Halloween special of ‘The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror‘ episode.
Guillermo del Toro helped put together homages to horror classics from the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe and Universal's classic movie monsters to del Toro's own creations in films like Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy, Blade and even some Pacific Rim kaiju fighting Jaegers if you have sharp eyes.
They're all mixed with the Simpson family, of course, which runs from evil forces overtaking their town and back to the comfort of their couch in front of the TV. Police chief Clancy Wiggum becomes a giant Cyclops inspired by the creations of Ray Harryhausen, a pioneer of movie visual effects; baby Maggie chases after Milhouse in a sleek black car, which Del Toro said he modelled on his favourite horror B-movie, 1977s The Car; and father Homer becomes a nuclear mutant.
An annual Halloween-themed episode, ‘Treehouse of Horror XXIV,' airs on Sunday, October 6th at 8/7c on Fox.
Check out the 2-minutes-and-45-seconds piece ahead of its TV debut.
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Del Toro said about his vision for the opening:
The Simpsons titles are so iconic and yet they've never been riffed in this vein. 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.
