Creator and showrunner Matt Roller, who has seen more than one ghost in his life, discusses his new animated horror comedy about a single mom of two struggling to run a haunted hotel with the help of her estranged brother, who is one of the ghosts; debuts September 19 on Netflix.
Matt Roller has seen two ghosts in his life and being a skeptic, the experiences were as unexpected as they were unsettling.“For one of them, we lived in this old farmhouse in LA and later learned the owner’s mother had died there of old age,” shares Roller.“Two weeks after we moved in, I saw a woman sitting at the end of the bed.
It wasn’t a shadow.It was clearly a person.And when I closed my eyes and opened them again, she was gone.
Another time was in the Omni Hotel in New Orleans, and I woke up to see a shadowy figure at the other end of the bed.I shone a light on it and, when I turned the light away, it was there again.There wasn’t anything that could have cast that shadow and I didn’t want to wake up my wife, so I said out loud to the shadow, ‘Okay!’ And went back to bed because what else do you do?” Produce an animated comedy series about a haunted hotel, apparently.
Roller, known for his work on Adult Swim’s , is now the proud creator and showrunner of , releasing on Netflix today, September 19. With animation from Titmouse, the series follows a single mother of two as she struggles to run a haunted hotel with the help of her estranged brother, who is now one of the ghosts haunting the hotel and thinks the other ghosts have some pretty good hospitality management ideas. Erica Hayes () serves as supervising director with Titmouse’s Chris Prynoski, Shannon Prynoski, Antonio Canobbio and Ben Kalina executive producing.Chris McKenna, Dan Harmon, Steve Levy, and Roller also executive produce.The voice cast includes Will Forte, Eliza Coupe, Skyler Gisondo, Natalie Palamides and Jimmi Simpson.
Check out the trailer: “I’ve always loved horror, even before the ghost encounters,” says Roller.“When I was on , I loved the animation of it.I loved the fast pace of it.
And I found myself having a lot of ideas that were more conducive to horror than sci-fi.That's when I started to conceive of the idea and just kicked it around to try to create something kind of contained but as expansive a world as possible, something that is relatable and understandable, and that would allow us to riff on any horror genre we wanted to.” So, Roller created his own family comedy using some of his favorite horror movies as the show’s building blocks.“I was going with and came in there at some point,” he shares.
“I also love , which is a Spanish horror movie by J.A.Bayona.
I wanted the space to feel like an old, New England hotel with a real tactile sense to it and then put a family in it.What felt like the most fun lock-in was having a family member in the hotel who was a ghost.Because of all the terrible things that might happen in this place, they couldn’t leave because that would mean leaving him.
It felt like a nice foundation with a lot of comedic games to play and from which we could run with any horror concept we wanted.” There are upwards of 80 Easter Eggs from horror movies in the show, including the hotel’s hallway pictures depicting paintings of Michael Myer’s house from and the Lutz’s home from .The hotel’s decor also includes a couch from . “An incredibly esoteric one that I wouldn’t expect anyone to notice, and it doesn’t matter, but the rug on the floor in the lobby is designed to look like the hallway wallpaper in ,” notes Roller.“It’s not a meaningful wallpaper.
It’s not noticeable, but we needed a pattern and borrowing the design from another horror film was something we did a lot in this show.” For as much attention as Roller and his team paid to the patterns on the walls and floors of the hotel, even more was paid to the designs of the characters, and the many, many ghosts that haunt the building. “For better or worse, adult animation has automatic guardrails set up and, if you go outside of those to wackier concepts, a lot of viewers will assume it’s a kid’s show and I didn’t want that,” says Roller.“But I also didn’t want the characters to look like they jumped in from another show’s universe.One of the unique things we did is add irises to our characters’ eyes to help make our characters more grounded and relatable.
We leaned into a more realistic design for our characters because we also wanted these crazy ghosts and monsters to be pushed and look otherworldly.” One of the biggest challenges on , in addition to creating dozens and dozens of unique ghosts and monsters, was deciding on the paranormal rules.Though animation lends itself to unlimited possibilities for a show like this, the medium also has unique stumbling blocks.“For example, what does it look like when they pass through something?” notes Roller.
“I didn’t want Nathan, the brother, to look like a ghost because, if he did, it would mean he couldn’t interact with anyone outside the family who was alive.Or at least, every time he did, he would have needed to have the same conversation.The rule we landed on was, in general, ghosts can look like humans, and you wouldn’t know they were ghosts if not for the hatchet in their head.
We also had to come up with a residual effect with the ghosts passing through something, so it didn’t look like an error in the animation.We also decided the ghosts wouldn’t have shadows.That felt like a fun way to distinguish them.
But they still had to be affected by light in some way because, if they didn’t, it would also look like an animation error.” From mauled park rangers and massive angler fish to skull-wearing butchers and half-headed lifeguards, the ghosts and monsters of are eclectic and eccentric. “My kids have seen the title sequence and my four-year-old really likes Candle Head,” shares Roller, referring to one of the more ambiguous, candle-obsessed ghosts that he actually voices.“She does not like the other ghosts but, to her, Candle Head is silly.She’ll even walk around our house going, ‘I need more candles!’” He adds, “My personal favorite is a ghost named Randy, a kid at a lakeside hang in the 80s who dies and who is always pretending he’s cooler than he is and is very confident that he’s absolutely had sex before.
I just like his energy.” While Roller downplays the fear factor for his daughter, who repeatedly would walk in on him working on the series, there was no holding back with audiences. “We were really trying to explore everything within this family and this show, so we have body snatches and exorcists and cults,” says Roller.“We went into this like, ‘You know what? We want to check every box.’ Nothing is off the table. Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.
Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
Netflix Drops ‘Haunted Hotel’ Trailer
Netflix Announces ‘Haunted Hotel’ Voice Cast, Release Date
Netflix Reveals Expansive Animation Lineup Through December 2025
Netflix Gets Animated At Annecy