The Story Behind the Re-Animator Reunion

Have you tuned into Hysteria! on Peacock yet? The series dropped all eight of its episodes last week, making for a perfect pre-Halloween binge for anyone interested in heavy metal, Satanic Panic, 1980s hairstyles, high-school drama, and certain members of horror royalty turning up in unexpected places. It’s not a spoiler to say Bruce Campbell‘s in the cast… but when you get to episode five, “Mother,” you’re treated to a surprise dual cameo.

Just in case you haven’t watched “Mother” yet, here’s one of these:

Episode five gives us an extended flashback puzzling through the troubled mind of Tracy—one of Hysteria!‘s main characters. As an adult (played by Anna Camp) she’s the leader of the Satanic Panic movement in her small town, accusing kids of worshiping the devil while being extremely overprotective of her teenage daughter, with dangerously disastrous consequences. In “Mother,” we get a look at why Tracy’s religious beliefs have such an unhinged quality to them: as a rebellious young woman in the late 1960s, she was forced under the tutelage of a sinister “deprogrammer” who still has a hold over her decades later.

And who did the forcing? Her own parents, of course, who appear in the flashback just once, but make an instant impact: because they’re played by Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs, making for a very nifty Re-Animator reunion. How did Hysteria! creator Matthew Scott Kane engineer this enormous treat for fans of the 1985 cult classic?

“I adore Re-Animator. I’ve been obsessed with that film ever since high school,” Kane told io9 as part of a Hysteria! press interview. “I was at a friend’s party during one of the strikes and ran across Barbara Crampton and got to talking, just about the show in general. And she very politely said, ‘Well, if you think of anything that I would be good for, just let me know.’”

Kane continued. “And I didn’t tell her, but I knew exactly what I wanted her for as soon as she said that. So once we were back up and running, we approached Barbara and Jeffrey’s agents, crossing our fingers that we could get both of them back. And lo and behold, three days later they’re in Covington, Georgia, and I’m having dinner with the cast of Re-Animator, and it was one of the coolest, most surreal experiences of my life. Both of them couldn’t be better people. They were so kind, and still to this day so massively talented; [they give] wonderful performances in the brief moment that they have on screen.”

You can stream all eight episodes of Hysteria! on Peacock now.

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