September is almost over and that means Huluween is just around the corner. As part of their spooky season celebration Hulu will be introducing a slate of original series and movies that includes the new horror anthology series Monsterland. Some of the cast and crew of the new series recently discussed the show during PaleyFest Fall TV Previews.
- The panel included:
- Actor Kelly Marie Tran
- Director Desiree Akhavan
- Creator, Writer and Executive Producer Mary Laws
- Cinematographer Anka Malatynska
- Tran stars in the “Iron River, MI” episode of the new anthology series which Akhavan directs.
- “It was like a weird fever dream,” Tran laughed, describing her work on the show. “But I had such an incredible time and it was, I think there was sort of this feeling for me on set the whole time of like this is, I think something that I probably have always dealt with just in my life like what would I do if I could have someone else’s life, like a life that I have just in my brain like fantasized like ‘oh it must be so much easier to be someone like that’ and it was really fun to sort of play with that.”
- “This was my first experience on a shoot where there were so many women in positions of power,” Akhavan said of the female presence in the making of Monsterland. “And I was so empowered to bring myself to the table. I was so empowered to make this my own thumbprint.”
- Laws, who serves as the showrunner, discussed the opportunity she had to put women in these positions for the series.
- “So often I found myself in a room with a lot of men making decisions and especially a lot of men making decisions about stories about women,” Laws said. “And I didn’t want that to be the case on our series.”
- “I think that especially in the horror genre, you know, you see a lot of women being chased around by, you know, chainsaws and by scary men,” Laws said of her desire to flip the script on the typical horror. “While I certainly do have an appreciation for that kind of horror, you know, we really wanted to dive into a different kind of storytelling.”
- All eight episodes of Monsterland will debut on Hulu this Friday, October 2. Check out Mack’s review of the new series.
- You can watch the full PaleyFest panel below: