CREATOR EXCLUSIVE
Checking Out
Haunted Hotel’s creator on merging horror and comedy for the ultimate dysfunctional sitcom
WORDS: TARA BENNETT
IF YOU’VE EVER STRUGGLED TO get along with a sibling, imagine trying to do it when they’re a ghost. That’s where writer Matt Roller’s imagination went while he was working as a story editor/ writer on the hit series Rick And Morty. Though he was a big fan of the tone and pace of what his boss Dan Harmon was doing on that adult animated comedy series, Roller tells Red Alert that his heart always drifted towards horror storytelling.
“I watch and read all the horror, so I wanted to build something that’s as flexible as Rick And Morty in terms of the ability to riff on a genre, just for horror,” Roller says of what eventually became his original adult animation series for Netflix, Haunted Hotel. Though it’s characterised as a horror-comedy, Roller says he really thinks of it as a comedy about horror.