Most of you are probably wondering, what is Creeping Death, and why all the fuss over it now? Well, to answer all of your questions, Creeping Death was a horror anthology series I created when I attended The University of Tampa. The series lasted about two years and it played on a closed circuit channel that broadcasted all over UT's campus. And April 2006 marks the tenth anniversary of the series. We broadcasted our first episode, Flash of The Blade back in April 1996 on UT's channel WUTV. The show also had an insanely popular but demented host, The Red Freak, which I played. Now most people out there never even seen Creeping Death, but if you attended The University of Tampa back in '96 and '97, you witnessed one of the most unique shows of it's time. It was unique in the way that it was crude, very very low budget, scary, had great story telling, also one of the strong factor is that it always had a hard rocking heavy metal soundtrack through out each episode, and a host that was totally insane. Now this was before the internet was really big. Yes, it was around, but video on line was still years away so there weren't a lot of crazy or unique videos or show that were easy to find out there. And at this point horror wasn't really big anymore and you couldn't catch a good horror movie or TV show. This was even way before the The Blair Witch Project, and right before Scream. Even all you local horror fans from Tampa Bay needed a horror fix. Since it was years after the last episode of Creature Feature and years before the indie horror flicks that played at The Saints and Sinners Film Festivals. So the people that witnessed it got a real treat.

Well, everything started when I moved from Upstate New York to Tampa, FL back in 1995. I enrolled at The University of Tampa and studied film and video. At the time I really wanted to make a movie or a short film. I only done a few short films back home but they were nothing to talk about. Here at UT I was going to learn and prefect my craft. Around September '95 they announced that UT was starting up a campus television station that was going to launch in the spring of '96. They need help and shows. I of course lending my help and they asked if I had any ideas for a show. I had an idea to do like a Twilight Zone series with different tales each episode, that way the cast could be different for you didn't have to worry about trying to get people back to shoot more episodes. (Back then real actors were hard to find so we used our friends in our films.) So, I presented my idea and they liked it . Now I just had to come up with a name for the show. I had no idea what I wanted to call the series, so I started looking at song and album titles of my favorite bands cause I didn't want the show to have a cool soundtrack and I wanted it to be music driven as well as being scary. At the time since we weren't selling anything or broadcasting all over the past, we could use copyrighted music. So, one title grabbed me at that was Metallica's Creeping Death and I thought that was an awesome title for the show. It fit great for a horror series.

The show was also going to need a host. kind of like Tales from the Crypt had the Cryptkeeper. But i wanted mine to be different. I all ready had an idea on who the host would be which was a character I created in a film that I made back home called Splatter (which is a film so bad I won't let anyone see). here was a character that I played who was called Blood Red. His face was all painted in red and he wore sunglasses and a bandana. And he just did a lot of yelling, I kind of model him after pro-wrestlers Macho Man Randy Savage, The Ultimate Warrior, and Sycho Sid. I also put the character in a screenplay I was writing called Freak Show. So, I wanted to use Blood Red as the host but I didn't like his. So, I changed it to The Red Freak which was a combo was his original name and the title of my screenplay. And I would be playing the role of the Freak.

So, I had a show and the next step was to start production on it which we did in September of 1995. The first episode we actually shot was not Flash of the Blade, it was a shorter version of the film that I made in Utica, Splatter which was a about a horror film director (which I played) whose characters from his films come to life and try to destroy him. The production sucked. I wasn't even directing the show. The guy that was ahead of the station was (who was a fucking asshole). I couldn't since I was a new student I couldn't use the equipment until my next semester. Even though I couldn't shoot i still could direct the thing but he took control of it. All my ideas were shot down and he tried to tell me how I should do my show. not that I'm against suggestions, but the ideas that he had didn't fit what I wanted Creeping Death to be. But, we finished the shoot and what happened to the episode was he had all the tapes and was working over at public access and somehow he got in trouble and they took his tapes away which had the stuff we shot. So, when he told me I didn't care cause I didn't want that to be an episode anyway. So, after that i wrote Flash of the Blade and somehow got a camera for I didn't have to have him shoot it. Now I could shoot it my way and we shot most of that episode in late '95. Also when i went back home for Christmas that year, with my camera I shot some scenes from the second episode Kill-Cam that featured Simon Lynx who was still living up in Utica at the time. We also shot some opens to show as me as The Red Freak, which never did air.

Finally, 1996 came and the station was about to launch. It actually launched a little early from what I remember, in February of that year. Only shows they had were a news show and a video show. We could also show hollywood movies that just came out on video. But Creeping Death was the only original series on the station that was a narrative. The show wasn't ready yet for the launch. I still had to shoot some pick up scenes from Flash and was also finishing up Kill-Cam. So, I shot a commercial with me playing the Freak which was a teaser for the show. Also at this point i change The Freak's character a little bit. He still had the red make-up on his face (now with a little red and white added too) but instead of the sunglasses and the bandana I had a red and black hooded robe. And I change the personality of the character. I didn't make him hyper like he was originally going to be. he was more quite and sinister. He was a little dark and creepy, he was more like The Undertaker than Macho Man now. I also gave The Red Freak a back story which was that he use to be a man named Vinnie LaRusso, whose life was cut short at a young age of 17. But when he died he didn't go to heaven or hell. He was lost in limbo. The Grim Reaper took his soul and transformed him into a Warrior of Death. Now he was known as The Red Freak, his mission was to show the living what death is. So, The Freak would begin every episode with introducing the viewer to the next tale of death. After I finished up Flash and Kill-Cam, I shot an intro for both shows and the series was ready to air. We debut both the first and second episodes back to back in April of '96. The opening had Metallica's Creeping Death playing. Since it was close to the end of the semester not a lot of students saw the show. It wasn't until the following school year where Creeping Death caught on.

In the fall of '96, Creeping Death started to get a cult following. We started our second season out strong with Sisters of The Dark. We had a loaded second season through '96-'97, with Sisters, Nighttime, Warhammer, and Blood Feast, a remake of H.G. Lewis' classic cult film. We also added a female co-host in the season opener, The Mistress of Death Madame Eve played by Lisa Klarich. Also, next season we did a Halloween special where we showed clips of classic horror films. And we also replayed the two episodes from the first season and students started to watch and catch on. Some of the kids there that were Tampa Bay natives gave me a big complement. they said the show and my character The Red Freak reminding them of Dr. Paul Bearer from Creature Feature. Coming from New York I never got to see Dr. Paul Bearer but later I found out more info on him, that he use to host Creature Feature that showed classic horror flicks. The show started in the early 70's and lasted until Paul Bearer's death in the early 90's. I even got to see a few of his shows on tape years later. So, it was a great honor to be compared to him. Then in early 1997 we added another element to our line-up. Creeping Death played on Tuesday nights at 9pm and right after that we would show a new horror flick. We called it Tuesday Night Frights. Well, we added another show that started right before Creeping Death that was called The Freak Show: LIVE with The Red Freak. We went live every week before the show and took phone calls and we wanted to get the viewers pumped for the show and wanted to make this part more interactive with the fans. We also added another character that appeared on the live show called D.O.A. played by Matt Wolin. The show was a lot of fun to do and you never knew what was going to happening LIVE. (Click here for more info on the LIVE show.)

I had a great time doing the show. We had our fans and stuff was catching on. I was interviewed on many WUTV shows either as myself or The Red Freak. We had commercials with myself or Lisa as Madame Eve who coined the famous phrase "Watch Creeping Death, Go Ahead, You Know You Want To!" and other phrases like "Jump on The Red and Black Express". We also had Creeping Death's scream queen Elizabeth "ELi" Leaberry in a few commercials. When we started our third season in the Fall of 1997, I found myself busy with tons a projects since it was my senior year. And I didn't have time to shoot any new episodes. So, I got permission from other students that made films I liked, like The Tell Tale Heart, You're Dead, and The Deal. But I still had time to shoot The Red Freak opens and closes for the show. This time ELi played the new Madame Eve and we added a storyline in the opens that had D.O.A. pitted against The Freak. This season also saw Simon Lynx come into the picture to add his friend The Freak. In late '97 I did get a chance to shoot one last Creeping Death episode, Revenge is Forever, which I co-directed with Mike Pridgen who wrote the story. But this was the episode that many say put an end to the series. (More on this episode and the end of Creeping Death, here.) But, the main reason it ended was I was moving on to over things. I was graduating in the Summer and busy working on my senior project, Chameleon. Which was originally going to be an episode but the film was different and could stand on its own. We also were going to make my short film Shadow of a Victim an episode, and also Andrew Ross' The Trust and Luis Matos' The Doctor Is In. But by the break of the new year Creeping Death was no more.

We had a great run though. I learned a lot working on that show. Watching it today, I can see how green I was but as the episodes went on i saw myself grow. I owe a lot to Creeping Death and The University of Tampa. Without that series they wouldn't be a Chameleon, or Bleed, or Sever, or even an ICON for that matter. Most of you that have seen Bleed know a little bit about the series, since scenes of the show were featured in it. Now you know the whole story on how Creeping Death came to be. I can't believe it's been ten years since it aired for the first time. I want to thank everyone that was involved in the series. i had fun making. The LIVE shows were crazy. I hope to someday put out a best of Creeping Death with all the highlights. We also might be posting some clips on the web, that way all of you can get a taste of it. I'm also going to feature a piece on it on the new Horror Channel series I'm co-producing. I hope you enjoyed this read. Below are links to all the episodes with write ups on each. I just want to end with this...."Let it be written, let it be done, I'm sent here be the chosen one. I'm Creeping Death!"

Click on the thumbnails below to view a profile of each episode. All episodes were written, produced, and directed by Chris Woods, unless noted. And every episode featured Metallica's Creeping Death on the open and close to the show. And all posters designed by Simon Lynx and profiles written by Chris Woods.