LVCRFT Halloween Album Features Horror Icons, "My Boo" Video Stars Jasmin Savoy Brown

Just in time for spooky season, LVCRFT is back. To celebrate their new album, Skeleton Sam’s Deadtime Stories , out Thursday (Oct. 1), the group released a music video for its single, “My Boo.” Scream star Jasmin Savoy Brown leads with a slinky vocal reminiscent of Dreamgirls and Little Shop of Horrors and teams up with horror director Tyler MacIntyre ( Tragedy Girls, It’s a Wonderful Knife ) for a deliciously frightening visual.

The video nails a “grime versus glam” aesthetic, with a story set in “a dirty, postapocalyptic world that you would see in something like George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead ,” MacIntyre shares. The macabre zombie design, built by makeup effects artist Megan Dupuy, draws inspiration from Romero films and Sam Raimi’s disturbing Evil Dead creations and perfectly contrasts “with the more polished, throwback jazzy glamour of Jasmin’s performance.”

“My goal was to have her start out as a grounded, sultry, lounge singer and grow to be almost maniacal as the song and story escalate,” he continues. “Jasmin is so talented and game to try anything, so we found a lot of fun moments with just her and a microphone.”

Currently starring in Hadestown on Broadway, Brown expresses wanting “to have fun riding the line between maintaining and losing control, with a hint of obsession” in the vocal performance. She adds, “I think the music video captured that really well.”

When meeting with LVCRFT, MacIntyre instantly gravitated toward “My Boo” and its clever lyrical twists. “It starts out so innocent and quirky. It’s a cute love song with a sly, macabre sensibility,” he says. “Simple and romantic, but it then grows to a possessive, doomed place.”

On set, the writer/director’s most cherished moment came when accomplished dancer Jamie Carreiro “improvised a gleeful medley of undead dance routines to the playback,” he remembers. “She had the crew and cast laughing so hard, and it really fit the story well. As if her decaying, scrambled zombie brain was remembering random dances from her past life.”

Shockingly, Halloween pop music remains largely an untapped market. LVCRFT – composed of heavyweight pop producers and songwriters Evan Bogart (Madison Beer, Lizzo), Amanda Warner (Carly Rae Jepsen, Kylie Minogue) and Peter Wade (Jennifer Lopez, Mark Ronson) – saw an opening and took it. The collective launched with 2019’s This is Halloween Volume 1 , introducing Skeleton Sam, a mystical being that quickly became the face of their music.

Like clockwork, the group has released an album every October and become staples on Halloween playlists. With Skeleton Sam’s Deadtime Stories , LVCRFT pulls out all the stops for a history-celebrating double-decker that brings together many of horror’s legacy performers. A Nightmare on Elm Street stars Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund reconnect on “Scream for Halloween,” while Ginger Snaps actor Katharine Isabelle dips her toe into music for the very first time, and Scream Ghostface voice actor Roger L. Jackson plays the album’s terrifying host.

But that’s not all, folks! Horror fans will also find Bruce Campbell ( The Evil Dead franchise), Jenna Davis (the voice of M3GAN ), Ernie Hudson ( Ghostbusters ), writer and director Mick Garris ( Sleepwalkers , Hocus Pocus ), Alyssa Sutherland ( Evil Dead Rise ), Cindy Weintraub ( Humanoids from the Deep ), John Kassir (voice of the Crypt Keeper, host of Tales from the Crypt ), director Robert Rodriguez ( From Dusk Till Dawn , The Faculty ) and David Dastmalchian ( Late Night with the Devil ).

Billboard spoke with many of the album’s horrifying guests about horror history, creating haunting musical characters, favorite Halloween memories and more.

Origin Story

How did Roger L. Jackson become the host of the album?

Amanda Warner : We made a dream list, and everybody on the album is very purposefully [selected]. We wanted a full spectrum of representation for our love letter to horror cinema and horror culture. I reached out to the agents cold, and we spoke to Roger’s agent and the agent was like, “Oh, this sounds like something that Roger would love.”

Peter Wade : He set up a call, and we were on the phone for like an hour and a half talking about spooky stuff. He’s of the culture. He’s one of us. He fully gets it. We wanted him to be the host, exactly like Vincent Price or Masterpiece Theatre .

Evan Bogart : The thing about Skeleton Sam is Sam doesn’t talk, so we needed a co-host. There was no better iconic voice actor that we thought would be the perfect fit than Roger.

Wade : He’s all over this record. He didn’t just voice the host. So, keep your ears peeled because he plays other roles. He plays animal roles. He’s a werewolf. Anytime you hear a werewolf on the record or a howl, that’s Roger. He’s a student of the radio. He’s got a great history and connection with that. We were so lucky.

Sweet Kristine becomes such a prominent character on the album. Where did she come from?

Wade : We did a bunch of songwriting sessions, and we had a whole cast of writers and a lot of new creatives. We worked with a producer named Sam Shrieve who’s now in the coven. His mom happens to be Cindy Weintraub from Humanoids from the Deep .

Bogart : We’re midway through the week, the week that we write the album. He goes, “Oh, my mom was a Final Girl.” We actually watched that movie while writing Deadtime Stories when we were in the sessions. At the end of all of the sessions, we thought that we should extend this incredible story and make a movie trailer that tells the story of this song as it was in a movie. It just snowballed into urban legend.

Warner : For the fan experience, this is absolutely going to transport them back to 1984 to Wes Craven’s masterpiece. That’s exactly what we want to do, to transport people with this album and the storytelling.

Mick, you made music with Horse Feathers in the ‘70s. What was it like returning to music?

Mick Garris : It was totally unexpected. Several years ago, we did a bunch of our old Horse Feathers demos and did overdubs and things and made our first album 50 years after the band was formed. It was thrilling to be invited to somebody else’s band and somebody else’s album, and to do a vocal, and to make it good enough that it’s included on the album.

You are an executive producer on this album, and writing and recording took place last fall. How did those sessions go?

Garris : I think it’s an exaggerated credit. [laughs] But they have this beautiful studio full of horror stuff, and it’s a gorgeous studio, one of the best I’ve ever recorded in. I managed to get Robert Rodriguez to come in and play guitar on our track, “Scream for Halloween.” My wife, Cynthia, plays some parts here. Being a part of something saluting my favorite holiday was really exciting, and something that’s going to reach a wider audience than Horse Feathers ever did.

Heather, you’ve done plenty of voice-over work, and you starred in a ZZ Top music video. Did it take much convincing for you to hop on your first album?

Heather Langenkamp : Not any convincing at all. I think everyone dreams of being on an album, and everyone dreams of having an opportunity to work with industry professionals who are gonna make you sound good and people who are really enthusiastic about the project. I felt that the minute I was asked — and Amanda will know this about me… I say yes instantaneously if she asks something of me. Being around these people, it’s a different kind of creative world. I’m used to the film world, makeup effects, and acting. The music world is different in so many ways and similar in others. My daughter and her husband are both musicians, so I feel like I really sop up a lot of energy from people in the music world.

Halloween Pop Music

Considering horror has reached a new level the past few years with films like Sinners , Weapons , Backrooms and Obsession , it’s strange that there is such a lack of Halloween pop music being made.

Garris : Where’s Bobby “Boris” Pickett when we need him? [laughs]

Katharine Isabelle : LVCRFT were so smart to find that pocket. Before this, if you asked me what Halloween music there is, I’d be like, “I guess ‘Monster Mash’ and ‘Thriller.’” Those would be the only ones I could think of. It’s great to really have fun, modern, high-quality Halloween spooky music.

Langenkamp : I’m tired of all the Halloween songs that they play on the radio ad nauseam. Usually, they’ll start the second week of October. And it’s not that they’re bad songs, I just think that especially when you’re my age, I’m in my sixties, you realize you’ve been listening to them for 50 years. It’s time for some new music, and I am so happy that someone is taking that mantle and doing it with all these incredibly talented songwriters.

John Kassir : During the time Tales from the Crypt was on the air, we put out the movie Demon Knight , which incidentally has one of the best soundtracks of any horror movie ever. I have people bring me just the soundtrack. It’s got amazing music on it and started a whole new culture of music and horror. I’ve been working a little bit of magic with Ice Nine Kills now. Spencer [Charnas] has gone out of his way to make every single one of his tracks in the vein of some horror movie.

It’s highly successful, not only because of his great music, but also the way he tips his hat to horror in everything that he does with it. They contacted me to do an intro for them as a track to use for their introduction on all the city tours with Metallica.

I worked with Bobby Pickett when he was alive. I played an Igor to his Frankenstein in the movie musical Monster Mash . It has Mink Stole, Sarah Douglas and Jimmie Walker. Bobby used to tell me his busiest time of year would be September, October, and November, and he would make his whole salary for the year during that time just doing concerts and stuff of the “Monster Mash” going around from town to town.

Bogart : There’s “Monster Mash” and a few songs that are actual Halloween songs, but most of the songs that have been dragged into the depths of the Halloween zeitgeist weren’t songs that were written for Halloween. They were just great songs. But thematically or sonically, they made people feel a certain way, like Halloween songs. It’s been 30, 40 years since you’ve seen a real onslaught of those songs.

Tyler MacIntyre : For years, any time I went to a Halloween party, there really wasn’t much difference in the music selection from any other time of year. You’d usually hear the “Monster Mash” thrown in, of course, and maybe John Carpenter’s Halloween theme if you’re lucky. That’s what I think is so great about what LVCRFT has been doing. Every album raises the bar, and now you can almost fill the entire holiday with just their stuff. I’m very excited to see how Deadtime Stories hits, especially since they’ve got so many horror legends involved. It’s been so impressive to see LVCRFT really take over that space in the last few years.

Spanning Horror History

The album serves as a snapshot of horror icons, from Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund and Bruce Campbell to modern stars such as Alyssa Sutherland and Jenna Davis.

Garris : Halloween has always been intended for the younger set. Maybe when it was Samhain, that might have been a different story, when witches were hung or stoned to death in Salem. It’s always got to have something fresh, something new, something young about it. It’s embraced by the young, and it’s always sad when you outgrow the magic of Halloween.

Isabelle : This might be the most excited I’ve ever been about anything in my entire life. [laughs] I did not think this was a real request. I thought for sure I was being scammed, but I was gonna go for it anyway. It’s definitely been an absolute number one top secret fantasy of mine to be able to sing. I only ever sing in my truck, and I’m pretty terrified to sing in front of people after some traumatizing auditions when I was young.

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/lvcrft-horror-skeleton-sam-deadtime-stories-1236351811/)._