This Halloween season, Hulu dropped a hilariously terrifying horror film about a demonic kid show host with an oversized mustache, bubble-popping kills, and a smile that hides something deeply sinister. Mr. Crockett, the debut feature from writer-director Brandon Espy, stars Washington Heights native Elvis Nolasco in a role that is already being heralded as the birth of a new horror icon. The Reel Ones team sat down with both men to break down how this wild, layered film came to life.
The Concept: More Than Just a Monster Movie
At its core, Mr. Crockett is about a demonic children’s television host who abducts kids from parents he deems unworthy. But as Espy is quick to explain, the story goes much deeper than its horror surface.
“Mr. Crockett is about a demonic kid show host who takes kids away from unworthy parents — parents he feels are undeserving of their love and attention,” Espy explains. “And it’s about one mom’s journey of getting her son back from Mr. Crockett. On this journey, she discovers his whole world — all these puppets, all these wild things — and rekindles the relationship with her son in the process.”
Espy conceived the story as something deliberately expansive. Long before the feature was greenlit, he had already envisioned Mr. Crockett extending well beyond a short film. “In my mind, I had originally seen the idea as a really expandable one — one that could go to a feature,” he says.
That instinct paid off when, ahead of the shorts’ release, he pitched a feature outline to executive producer David Worthen Brooks. What was supposed to be a 15-to-30-minute conversation stretched over an hour. “Later on that night, they hit me back and said, ‘Hey, we really like this idea,'” Espy recalls. “The wheels were turning — I think a lot more within that meeting, too.”
From there, Espy brought in co-writer Carl Reid, a trusted collaborator he’d worked with since the short. “I was really busy with my 9-to-5 and family, and I was like, ‘Yo, if you really want to get this script done within the time needed, I need help,'” Espy admits. The first draft came in within two months. Hulu greenlit it financially shortly after. “It was a lot of timing,” Espy reflects, “but on top of timing, you had to be ready.”
Becoming Mr. Crockett: Elvis Nolasco’s Process
For Elvis Nolasco, stepping into the role of Mr. Crockett — born Emmanuel Crockett — required tracing the full emotional and psychological arc of a character whose menace is rooted in unresolved childhood pain.
“I understood early on that everything happening in this world — to the general mind it would be like, ‘Oh, this is just outrageous’ — but I understood that there was a deeper meaning in this,” Nolasco says. “I wanted to make sure that everything I’m bringing to this character was coming from a deeper place.”
Drawing on his extensive stage work, including performing 20 different characters in a one-man adaptation of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for the American Play Theatre, Nolasco approached the role through full immersion. “I wanted to make sure that the work is already living inside of me, so that when they say action, I don’t have to stop and think — where am I? I?”
A key part of that immersion was physical. Nolasco personally requested the character’s signature oversized mustache and exaggerated teeth. “I immediately reached out to Brandon and said, ‘Hey, I need these teeth, and I need them to look like this,'” he recalls with a laugh, noting the production team questioned the cost before ultimately trusting his instinct. The mustache, he explains, came from a place of personal memory. “I remember my dad having that kind of mustache. I remember folks in my family and in the neighborhood growing up having that mustache — so if it was comfortable for them to look so wonderful in their mustache, then I had to make sure it felt the same way for me playing Mr. Crockett.”
To get comfortable in the prosthetics, Nolasco wore them everywhere — restaurants, the streets of Philadelphia, anywhere he could test people’s reactions. “I was asking myself, how could I work this uncomfortability into the character?” he says. “Through the teeth, the mustache, the whole design — it’s a perfect blend of comedy with horror, but also that relatability we all kind of feel.”
Building the World Inside the TV
One of the film’s most distinctive elements is the construction of Mr. Crockett’s actual television world — a vivid, creepy, 70s-inspired kids’ show set that characters literally enter. For Espy, building it was the highlight of the entire shoot.
“I’ve always wanted to shoot a kid show,” he says. “We pulled a lot of great references from Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, McDonald’s Land, Picture Pages, Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” Production designer Michelle Patterson helped realize that vision with a vibrantly retro set. “I wanted it to be a very vibrant 70s-forward set,” Espy says, “because back then, as kids, when you see it you think, ‘Oh, this looks kind of cute’ — but now you look back at it and it looks really creepy. I wanted to lean into the elements of the bad side of it.”
The team even filmed a full in-universe kids’ show that didn’t make the final cut — sequences in which Crockett teaches children lessons from within the set. “Those were some of my favorite parts,” Espy says.
Reinventing Horror Kills — and the Bubble Scene
Mr. Crockett also takes a deliberately playful approach to its horror sequences, particularly the kills. Espy and co-writer Carl Reid were intentional about avoiding genre clichés. “We wanted to really reinvent some stuff — not do typical things you might see within horror films,” Espy explains. “With kids, he has these kids’ games, and with adults, he has these violent adult games. It’s like, ‘Oh, you want to play with me? Bubble time.'”
The scene in which a character’s head explodes via an enchanted bubble has already become a fan favorite. Espy describes it in almost animalistic terms. “It’s like he’s almost a snake — his singing is almost like mesmerizing to this victim.” The approach extends to the film’s overall tone: “Even the hangman reference on the wall — ‘Good night’ — we were thinking of little things that showed he’s having fun with this. Even though he’s on this whole vengeful path toward these parents, he’s going to make sure he has fun. It’s almost like rubbing it in their face even more.”
Deeper Themes: Parenting, Peer Pressure, and False Idols
Beneath the horror and dark comedy, Mr. Crockett carries a genuine thematic weight about parenting, neglect, and the forces that pull children away from their families. Espy is thoughtful about what Mr. Crockett represents. “He could represent many things — not only a show that the kid is obsessed with, but peer influences, parents aren’t too aware of, friends at school, drugs, anything that distracts a kid from the path their parents have worked hard to get them on,” he says. “I love people thinking deep into it because it almost falls into the umbrella of societal peer pressure.”
Nolasco echoes this layering. “A lot of people in our community have experienced parental issues at home, or have experienced it through friends or people in their lives,” he says. “The film really taps into deeper themes of family, parenting, and leads to some good horror, some good drama, and some great comedy too.”
A New Horror Icon — And a Sequel on Deck?
The reaction online has been overwhelming, with fans on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram loudly championing the film. Nolasco credits that audience energy with helping answer the sequel question better than any executive conversation could.
“Kudos to all the folks on TikTok, on Twitter, on Instagram,” Nolasco says. “Their voice, what they want, how they’re expressing how they feel about Mr. Crockett — that speaks volumes and hopefully answers that question.”
Espy kept his cards close but confirmed the team isn’t empty-handed. “We’re locked and loaded,” he says with a grin. “We got some ideas, some fun stuff building on top of what’s already been presented — stay tuned.”
For both men, Mr. Crockett represents something bigger than a single film. It’s the arrival of a horror icon built not on a mask or heavy makeup, but on the full, unguarded performance of an actor willing to go to the edge — and a director bold enough to dream in 70s Technicolor and bubble-popping terror.
Mr. Crockett is now streaming on Hulu.
