Hello and welcome to In Too Deep, where I over-analyse a certain section of pop culture.
Well it’s that time of the year again. The time when the Simpsons’ Halloween episode is delayed for some reason that only Americans would know (okay so it wasn’t this year, but being two weeks early isn’t a consolation either). So since they’re so creatively bankrupt, I’m going to give them some ideas free of charge.
6)The Thing: You can do two ways of doing this. You can either set the cast in Antarctica and make it a proper bit of suspense where we have no idea who the Thing is at any given moment, which would work really well. I mean the audience wouldn’t know who the Thing is, so anyone acting out of character will change things up. It would be generally scary. The other way of doing it though would be to have the Thing land in Springfield and start to assimilate the various residents. But while there would be some good Body Horror, there’s one story that could do it even better.
5)Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Now here’s an untold story that’s full of potential. Imagine a Springfield where Homer’s family is solely being replaced with emotionless clones. As time goes on there are less people for him to turn to, Homer has to keep his emotions in check to avoid being discovered. To really ramp up the weirdness have all the replaced characters drawn like their early Tracey Ulman days. Could be an interesting thing to do.
4)H. P. Lovecraft: One of the first things they did in a Treehouse of Horror episode was a dramatic reading of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Ravenâ€. Sticking with old horror writers, why not go adapt the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Perhaps his most famous one, The Call of Cthulthu. Have Homer and a few other characters going out and finding the giant monster and being terrified of it. Add in a few jokes and whatnot, but mostly make a faithful adaptation of the plot. Introduce the kids to it the same way they did with “The Ravenâ€.
3)Silent Hill: Never played the games, but I’ve heard a lot of good stuff about Silent Hill 2, and the world in general does interest me a great deal. So why not send Homer into Silent Hill to show what scares him the most. Namely healthy living and lots of fruits and vegetables. Make Pyramid Head a fitness trainer. Make it a parody of the idea that Silent Hill is all about. Sure the fans will hate it, but still, it might be a fun idea. Though knowing the modern day stuff they’ll muck it up.
2)Slender Man: This is one of the biggest things on the internet right now when it comes to scary horror. I’ve said before that Slender Man is really nothing more than a glitch Pokemon, but it’d be interesting to see how the Simpsons handle a character that relies so much on suspense. They could even do their own short version of Marble Hornets. Of course they’ll muck it up and make it nothing more then a bunch of tired memes, but I for one would love to see Bart and Milhouse being attack by everyone’s favourite Humanoid Abomination.
1)A sequel to Homer3: Back in 1995 they made a landmark segment in their sixth Treehouse of Horror episode, Homer3. In it they took primitive CGI technology and made a short segment where Homer was wandering around the third dimension. It actually still holds up quite well today all things considered. But I say lets take it the next step: turn all of Springfield into 3D. Have some sort of 3D wave wash over the city, changing everyone and everything into 3D. Sure it’s not as impressive nowadays since they’ve done it in various games, but it’d be cool to see them in 3D. See how the family reacts. And best of all, bring back the original Homer from that segment and give it a happy ending as the residents cope with being in 3D. It’ll be interesting to do a modernised sequel 17 years after it first aired (and I bet you feel old now upon learning that, don’t you).
So there you have it. My ideas on what they could do for Treehouse of Horror XXII… I… V… whatever number they’re up too. If you disagree with anything, or have anything to add, feel free to leave a comment. Till next time.
