The latest iteration of V/H/S is leaning into the holiday spirit with V/H/S/Halloween, and Casper Kelly is here to scare up some laughs along with those screams. Debuting in 2012, the V/H/S horror anthology series has proven to be a winning formula. The latest iteration will feature six new horror short films from directors like Bryan M. Ferguson, Anna Zlokovic, and Paco Plaza.
Screen Rant actually got to visit the set of one of these shorts, Casper Kelly’s “Fun Size,” which imagines a night out for a pair of friends taking a deadly turn when they encounter a whimsically monstrous candymaker. We also spoke with Kelly about finding horror amid comedy, riffing on the Willy Wonka archetype, and bringing his Adult Swim experience to the horror series.
V/H/S/Halloween Is Sickeningly Sweet (And Sadistic) With “Fun Size”
“Fun Size” is a perfectly gory little short for V/H/S/Halloween, at least from what we got to see on set. Arriving at a makeshift candy factory, the set was decked out for the Halloween season in a way that fit both the holiday and the grimy touches of the story. Focusing on a double date that takes a deadly turn on Halloween, “Fun Size” was a blast for director/writer Casper Kelly.
Kelly has been a longtime fan of the V/H/S series, admitting that “there were years of me going, ‘how do I get involved in this?’ Then, it was lucky that I was working with Josh Goldbloom on another project. He ended up having to pull out… but we met each other, so when he started assembling this new V/H/S, he thought of me. I’m so grateful he did.”
“Fun Size” focuses on a murderous masked killer who works as a parody of mascot characters and candymakers from pop culture like Mr. Peanut and Willy Wonka. The concept takes those characters more in line with Saw or The Devil’s Rejects, with the set looking absolutely gnarly (in the best of ways) when we visited it. It’s an absurd concept, just how Kelly wanted it.
The connection between horror and comedy is a fun fusion for many creatives, but it’s a key aspect to Kelly’s approach. “I think even when I try not to do comedy, when I try to open a vein and really just express my pain, people go, ‘Oh, that was so funny!” I think it’s just baked into how I do it, even when I don’t want to do it. I think that’s just how it works out.”
I just love that idea of body parts getting chopped up and turned into candy.
It’s something that fans of Kelly can pinpoint across his career. The co-creator of Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell and the mind behind the viral hit Too Many Cooks, Kelly’s brand of surreal comedy has always had one foot in the world of horror. Fittingly, his V/H/S/Halloween short “Fun Size” flips the script and brings some almost cartoonish glee to its gory tale.
“Once I got the premise of this V/H/S and found out it was Halloween, I filed that away in my brain. When I’m taking showers and walking around, that’s when the ideas start flowing in — and this one came very quickly. I just love that idea of body parts getting chopped up and turned into candy, and people inadvertently eating them,” he laughed.
A big part of that idea stemmed from a self-professed love for Willy Wonka and a desire to take it to a dark place. “I love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Kelly said with a laugh, “and it was just fun to do something with that. Early on, I kind of dreamed of a waterfall of chocolate and blood, but knowing the budgets of these, we streamlined that a little.”
At the core of the film is the unsettling killer, a candy mascot from hell who wants to turn his victims into tasty treats. Reflecting on where the concept came from, Kelly admitted that “I was just trying different things. Originally, I had an idea where it was a normal head but with a very tiny face. The size of a nose, being the whole thing.”
“That wasn’t very suited to found footage, because you don’t get close-ups. It’s the camera moving as you do. This wasn’t quite suited for that, because you’ve got a panicky camera going by. You needed something that made a visual statement faster.” Luckily, Kelly had help in designing the killer.
“I was working with Shane Morton, who did Cheddar Goblin in Mandy. We came up with the idea of a head that’s like a peanut M&M with a smile and eyes, just looking dead at you. It’s very tall and very colorful and very Wonka-esque. It really pops.” The found-footage approach is a clever touch, adding a grounded edge to the almost wacky visual of a Mr. Peanut-esque killer.
I love to combine things that have not been combined before.
This isn’t the first time Casper Kelly has played with the found-footage style, however. “One of the first things I did, when I worked at Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, we did a Blair Witch parody with Scooby-Doo characters. They were still animated characters, embedded in a live-action world. That was kind of new technology at the time.”
It was something that stuck with Kelly, who noted that one of his favorite things to do as a filmmaker is to combine ideas and concepts into something twisted and new. “To have a handheld camera flying around and be able to track these animated characters, it was so much fun to combine. I love to do that, combining things that have not been combined before.”
While the comedic elements and dark humor are crucial to “Fun Size,” it’s also important to remember V/H/S/Halloween is a horror story to its very core. That’s why the short leaned into the found footage format, “because of where the camera is, you’re not sure what’s off-camera. It’s great for making things scarier, for building anticipation and tension.”
I think the nice thing about found-footage is that it allows for luck and chance. It’s nice when it breaks in your favor. Normally, you have these shots in your head, close-ups and low angles. But you don’t have that kind of flexibility here. It’s the disadvantage that becomes an advantage.
“The limitation is a blessing. It’s fun to take advantage of that. It’s these four people coming back from a costume party, and two of them are dressed up like camera people in a found footage horror movie, and it just gets worse for them from there. It’s great.”