Ahead of the Hulu Original film Mr. Crocket’s premiere at Fantastic Fest, we sat down with Writer-Director Brandon Espy (who co-wrote the film with Carl Reid), and his cast Kristolyn Lloyd who plays Rhonda, Elvis Nolasco who plays Mr. Crocket, and Ayden Gavin who plays Major. To start the conversation, we asked the group why they were attracted to the project. Originally a short film, the Hulu Original thrives on the b-horror camp and thrill of the 80s and early 90s. But more importantly, it centers on Black voices.
For Kristolyn Lloyd, that point was key. “I was attracted to the fact that it was a predominantly Black film written by two Black men and directed by a Black man,” Lloyd started, “I had never done horror before, and [Mr. Crocket] is so unhinged that it feels just like home for me as a theater actor. I was really attracted to the character of Rhonda and her instability, and being able to sit in that instability while still being vulnerable and still communicating this very big story is happening.”
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That instability is also what attracted the young Auden Gavin, “I like the Mind Control Act,” Gavin said, “It really caught my eye was that Major doesn’t just have one certain personality, [there are] two split ones, the mind control one and the normal one. When his dad died, he changed his personality, and that’s what really caught my eye [as an actor].”
With a resounding love of the chaos of Mr. Crocket, the titular character himself offered up a similar response. Elvis Nolasco said that he was attracted to the project because of “the layers and how colorful this world was and how clear and visible it was.” He added, “For me, reading the script and just looking at this world, it gave me a huge sense of something I’ve never done before. It also made me feel like everything that I’ve been doing as an artist, that I’m going to have a space where I’m going to be able to sprinkle a little bit of all of that into this drawing [of the character].”
As for Brandon Espy, he just mixed Freddy Krueger with Blippi. “I’ve always been a big fan of Nightmare on Elm Street and always wanted to create my own horror villain,” he said, “My oldest kid inspired me to write this because he was obsessed with Blippi. I couldn’t take him out of watching him at all. It was like [my son] had no parents anymore. It’s just Blippi, and he was daddy, and that’s it. I felt like, now what if it’s almost like a plan [for a villain that] could really happen? What if [Blippi]would take these kids away from these parents because he already has them from watching the show?”
He continued, “The next step is asking, ‘What’s stopping him from just inviting them into his house?’ That’s all because the kids almost [always] listen to him more than they’ll listen to the parents. I was playing with that, and then to really take people on this journey, we had a mother [who is trying to get] her son back. Because I feel like there are very few higher stakes than that. Losing your kid is also like one of my biggest fears.”
Their roles’ vibrance and unhinged versatility stand out as a longtime horror fan. For all of its beauty and grounding in diverse cultures, white characters have often led the horror genre. Even when stories are grounded in mythologies and folklore from Indigenous, Black, Latino, or other cultural stories—characters of those ethnicities are often left on the periphery. They guide the lead characters while becoming fodder for the villains. But that doesn’t mean the horror created by and starting BIPOC creatives hasn’t existed.
It’s always been there, inspiring the mainstream and becoming classics, like Ganja & Hess and Eve’s Bayou. At the same time, the rise of societal horror stories started a new wave of Black horror that focussed on commentaries almost exclusively about trauma with critically acclaimed and fan-loved films like Get Out, His House, and the more infamous projects like Prime Video’s Them.
But with Mr. Crocket, we see a film written, directed by, and starring Black talent that embraces the fun, the camp, and the absurdity that the genre has in store—inspired by classics like Nightmare on Elm Street. And for director Espy, that was key. After being asked about the current waves of societal horror, Espy explained, “I’ll say for me [making a fun film] was a really big goal. I wanted to show it from that type of perspective. We never got to see [Freddy Krueger] from a Black family’s perspective. You often see these drama films [about Black families] in the 90s, but you don’t really get to have fun with them.”
With those fond memories of horror from the late 80s, Espy chose his early 90s time period. Espy explained, “A lot of white people in horror get to have fun, so like, where’s our fun? [With Mr. Crocket] I was like, this is a chance where I get to create the fun and then really put it in [time period] that I felt was just not only cool stylistically, but with the lack of technology made the obstacles that much harder than if I set it in the modern day.”
Nolasco added, “There’s just been this gap of being able to see and participate in films like Mr. Crocket, so to be able to see that a Black man wrote this and has all these characters for actors of color in this genre, it’s just,” he trailed off for a second before answering with even more excitement, “It’s kudos to Brandon for writing this and thinking it up.”
Nolasco continued, “You know, this is a true story. I’ve been working as an actor on many different platforms, portraying and doing many different works. But you know, I wanted to do this. At the beginning of every year, I usually have a conversation with my manager, and at the beginning of 2023, I specifically said to my manager: I need to find something like this… And when they reached out to Brandon, that was one of the first things that they said to Brandon. Elvis is looking for something like [Mr. Crocket]. If we can have more of that, then we can really start opening those doors and creating more projects.”
Bridging Blippi with Freddy captures Mr. Crocket’s entire atmosphere. With fantastic performances, a reliance on practical effects that don’t quit, and enough evolving lore to make an impact, this is a great way to begin Huluween.
Mr. Crockett is streaming now, exclusively on Hulu.
