An Interview With Oceanic Horror Producer, & Creator of Santa Rosa Aquarium Lewis Gibson (SquakProductions)
Recently, our head writer interviewed extraordinary Oceanic Horror Producer & Creator of Santa Rosa Aquarium, Lewis Gibson (SquakProductions)!
Lewis Gibson (SquakProductions) is an analog horror producer best known for his web series Santa Rosa Aquarium, which focuses on a mysterious fictional aquarium where people go missing, the animals act strange, & the staff acts stranger.
In today’s interview, we sit down with Lewis to discuss his passion for aquariums & the sea, his analog horror journey, his short film Country Lanes, his web series Santa Rosa Aquarium, & his advice to aspiring analog horror producers. Before delving into today’s comprehensive 19-question interview, please note that everything said has been edited for clarity, & that the opinions of our interviewee do not necessarily reflect the opinions & values of our organization. With that being said, let us delve into the contents of the interview!
Questions About His Passion:
1. What sparked your passion for aquariums & all things ocean?
It started when I was younger. I think I watched Finding Nemo every single day until I was about 7. I indoctrinated myself into it subconsciously. I used to visit aquarium shops all the time. There’s still one local to me that I visit quite a lot. I still keep fish now to a smaller extent. I think that started things off, growing up in that environment.
2. Was there any particular book, person, place, thing, or media franchise which contributed to sparking your passion?
There’s a conservation aquarium sort of about an hour from where I am called The Deep. It’s the only place in the country that has sawfish. I used to go there when I was younger, that was interesting. That was the first time I would ever see sharks up close, that’s a really vivid memory in my mind.
3. What sparked your passion for ocean & analog horror?
No one really thinks to do it. I think the ocean is such an under-utilized concept. It’s terrifying. It’s an environment in which people aren’t built to survive. We are no longer in our own habitat. We’re in a place where if you look down, you don’t know what is beneath you. I don’t want to say that it hasn’t been done before, because I have seen one about a deep-sea trench that helped inspire me. That was terrifying. It used a lot of CGI.
It’s untapped potential. Analog horror has been funnelled into these scenarios all about people that look strange. It’s often the same tropes that are repeated. I think the ocean is a nice change of pace.
4. How did you get the name “SquakProductions”?
It’s gone to the point where I don’t know. It’s like 5 years old. In high school, I had this friend group, & I think someone made a typo, & they kept repeating it. It turned into an inside joke. When I went to make my YouTube channel, I wasn’t expecting anything to happen from it. I thought, I’ll use that because it’ll be funny. I’m at the point where I’m too big to change it. I’ve sort of dug myself into a hole, & now I’m stuck with SquakProductions.
5. What is your favourite marine or terrestrial animal?
Personally? The giant squid! It’s not even necessarily anything to do with the squid itself, but more the history of it. How it went from a myth, something you’d compare to Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, something people would talk about seeing then get called crazy for it, to something which exists. It’s not unheard of but, you know, most myths tend to be disproven over time, but this one is one that is a real thing that exists. It’s not anything to do with the squid itself. As fascinating as they are, I think they are up to 13 meters long, it’s just the story & the history behind the giant squid.
Questions About His Work:
6. How did you begin producing Analog Horror videos?
I started in early February (2026). I’ve always been interested in horror as media. I think the retro analog aspect of it is something that I really do enjoy. I think my favourite horror film of all time is Sinister, I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen it, but in there the main character finds tapes which have an analog feel to them. That definitely helped.
I think it’s a good entry point. Up until today, I made everything on my phone. I couldn’t shoot an hour & a half feature film with no budget. But with analog horror, if you have an idea, you can make it. I think that’s what makes it such a good way to get involved & try to make something. It gets rid of the excuse of “I don’t have a budget”.
7. You began producing Analog Horror in February, 2026. What avenues of Analog Horror did you explore before finally beginning Santa Rosa Aquarium?
I messed around with it for a while. At first I didn’t have a series in mind. I was just experimenting with classic analog horror techniques. Stuff like the early Mandela Catalogue or emergency warning broadcasts. There’s someone in your house & it’s not quite right, that kind of thing. I wasn’t focused on story, I wanted to try & work on the technique. The style, the audio, the fuzzy background noise, & the robotic voice. I messed around with that for a while, making one-off videos until I realized people are getting a bit tired of this now. Then, I messed with some body-horror type stuff, because I wanted to show rather than say if that makes sense. I did my short-lived sensory deprivation surgery series (Dr. Sigbon’s Sensory Deprivation Surgery), which some people still think is good, but I think it’s limited. There’s nowhere I could go with that. I might return to it one day, but I don’t have any plans to, because I think it’s more of a concept than a series.
After the release of Invincible season 4, I thought “Here’s a TV show I like, I like making analog horror, I can put 2 & 2 together here & I can do both!” I tried to do an analog horror based on Invincible, which worked well for a while. I think the problem with that is I can only work within that universe. I can’t add things into it very much. I’ve got to abide by the rules of that, which some people did enjoy. It’s why I probably won’t go back to doing something based off a pre-existing brand again. Once that season ended, people had sort of gotten over it. I thought I should move on as well, I was getting bored of it, & I was running out of ideas. Time for something fresh. I messed around with the short film (Country Lanes), & then I started making Santa Rosa Aquarium.
8. Walk us through your short horror film “Country Lanes”. What does this title focus on? What inspired you to create it? What was your creative process for an in-person film?
Have you ever watched the creep films? That was a big inspiration. Not necessarily anything to do with the plot, or anything to do with the actual substance, but just in terms of the scenario. There’s nothing supernatural going on, it’s just a weird guy. I feel like people are so underutilized in horror, which sounds strange. Think of most horror, it could resemble a person, but there’s always something supernatural going on, like they’ve been brought back from the dead. I think people are so scary in general, & that is not taken advantage of nearly as much as it could be.
The best part is, it’s very cheap to make. I don’t need to make a giant monster, I can just do it myself, which is what I did. I played the antagonist in that film. That was an experience as well, it was me & 2 friends that I managed to get to do it as well, partly because I can’t drive & one of them needs to drive the car. It’s definitely the longest I’ve worked on any individual video.
In terms of inspiration for the story, there’s a very old YouTube video called No Through Road. It’s basically just 5 teenagers driving around rural England in a car. The radio starts to glitch out, starts playing creepy music, then lights start to flicker, & in one of the flickers, a man is sitting in the middle of the road. He starts attacking the car while creepy music plays in the background. It sounds really basic, & it is, but what’s so well done is the execution. As someone who lives in England, the way they acted was so authentic. I think the first five minutes are just them talking to each other in the car. The way they acted was so authentic that when a lot of people see it for the first time they ask if it’s real. That was a big inspiration of mine in terms of the story is in a rural English village, driving on a road.
9. What is Santa Rosa Aquarium? How would you describe it for those who are not familiar?
Santa Rosa Aquarium is a fictional aquarium, contrary to popular belief. I know at the start of the series, a lot of people were asking if it was real. They were like, I live in Santa Rosa, I’ve never seen this before, blah blah blah. You know what? I’ll take that as a compliment! If you think it’s real, it means I’m making it look real enough, so I’m happy with that.
It’s a fictional aquarium set in 1980s America where people go missing, the animals act strange, & the staff acts stranger. I would give more of an overview of the story, but it’s currently unraveling, so I can’t give too much away because I don’t know where I will be up to by the time it releases. I don’t want to give too much away apart front what I’ve published up until today, pretty much.
10. What sorts of marine life occupy the Santa Rosa Aquarium? In the world of the Santa Rosa Aquarium, what is the Mermaid Program?
There’s a mix of everything really. There’s beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), they’ve got their own dedicated tank. There’s river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis), which are slightly infamous within my sort of fanbase. There’s sea lions, jellyfish, starfish, there’s a whole bunch of things.
The good part is I haven’t fully published maps yet that are complete, which means if I have a cool idea, I can put it in there & no one can tell me I can’t.
About the mermaid program, if you’ve been to aquariums before, sometimes they’ll have mermaid performances. People will dress up, they’ll put a mermaid tail on, & they’ll dive around in the tank. That always terrified me, because the idea of being trapped in an aquarium with a bunch of sharks & that sort of thing whilst not being able to move your legs separately, & being stuck in a big mermaid costume is scary. I wanted to find a way to utilize that.
I think the mermaid program is the most popular episode on TikTok, it hit one million likes a few weeks ago.
11. What are the primary exhibits of Santa Rosa Aquarium? What are Sectors A, B, & C?
That depends on how you define primary, because there’s primary in universe in terms of the biggest tanks, & primary in terms of what’s relevant to the story. I’ll start with what’s relevant to the story. There are river dolphin lakes. Obviously, river dolphins are a freshwater species, so I thought why not put them in an outdoor lake? I thought that was an interesting idea. Another thing that scares me is zip lines. Not zip lines in general, but the ones that go over large bodies of water or between mountains. I thought, well, how about we have a zip line that goes over the dolphin lake?
Then there’s the beluga tank, beluga whales are definitely interesting because of their whole echolocation thing. That’s underutilized. I’m sort of using them in a way similar to sirens or mermaids. The belugas will sort of speak to people. Obviously that’s not real, so you’ve got to suspend your disbelief a little bit there. I can’t say why just yet, that definitely won’t be revealed for a long time.
I’d say the primary exhibit in terms of story is Deep Blue, which is supposed to be a recreated slice of the ocean with a few surprises. It also contains my one & only retcon. I first had it at 2 million gallons large, which sounds really big, until I did a little bit more research & I found out that 2 million gallons actually isn’t that big, so I upped it to 7 million gallons, using the excuse of they got more funding & the investors really liked it. No one seemed to notice or care. I’m going to say I got away with that retcon.
12. What made an aquarium, & Santa Rosa, CA, ideal locations for an analog horror series?
I’ll disclose the Santa Rosa thing first, that is a very short & anticlimactic story. I didn’t know it was a real place. I’ve now leaned into it, knowing it is. I just needed an American city-sounding name. I wanted to do San Diego at first, but that’s already a big thing, so I thought I’d mess around with that, change it around, & I ended up with Santa Rosa. That’s when I ended up with people in my comments, like, I’m from Santa Rosa, & I didn’t know this was real, I’ve never been there before. I was like, Hey, it’s fine. I didn’t know it was real either! I’m only just learning you exist. People are always very disappointed when they learn that. They always expect some sort of childhood story of exactly why, something like I visited Santa Rosa when I was 5, but that never happened. I only learned it was real a month ago (July 2026), & now I’m sort of stuck with it. I’m sticking with it.
To answer your question about the aquarium itself, I think they’re also very under-utilized, arguably more than the ocean itself. A lot of people think it’s unrealistic that this stuff would happen. In future installments it gets a little more unrealistic, & a little more out there. But at the very start, it’s not that far-fetched. You’ve got to think about what happened at places like SeaWorld in the 1990s. There was an Orca, Tilikum, which killed 3 people, which sounds a lot like what happens in my series, so suddenly it’s not that far-fetched. You put animals in a place where they’re not supposed to be, & then all of a sudden things can start going wrong.
13. Walk us through the process of creating an installment of Santa Rosa Aquarium. What is your creative process?
I very, very rarely have several episodes planned out at once. What I like to do is I’ll have a plot point, I need to get the story from A to B. Then I’ll give myself 2 or 3 videos to get there, & I’ll figure out what I want to do with that. I don’t like restricting myself. I could take a month & I could write every single episode. I don’t want to do that because the number of times I will be mid-episode, & think, I’ve got a good idea, let’s do this. I like to take it a few episodes at a time.
When I do get around to making individual episodes, if I need a voice actor, I will usually use my Discord to find them. I have a sort of roster of voice actors that I like to use on the regular. You’ve probably noticed there are a few recurring voices, especially PG, I love that guy. He’s my main voice actor for most of the training taped. I’ll use one if I’ve already got them. If not, I might put out a post on my TikTok or Discord saying I need someone with these specifications, please message me. Then I’ll get about a hundred messages, & I will try to check as many as I can. Unfortunately, I end up leaving a lot of people undelivered, which I’m sure annoys many people, but there’s just too many requests at some point.
Then I’ll write my scripts out. I like to do that all myself, which I think helps. A lot of people ask if they can come on as an extra writer, which sounds good in theory, but then I lose that creative control. I know roughly where the story’s going throughout all the volumes. If I don’t have that full control, I worry that it won’t come out the way I want it to. I do everything myself pretty much, apart from the voice acting. If I could change my voice, I promise you I would do my voice acting myself as well.
Then I’ll send the scripts out to the voice actors. While I wait, I’ll sort of edit any picture I want to use, you know, if I need to make a picture of a building, exhibit, or logo. I’ll spend my time making that using photo editing software. Then once I get my scripts from the wonderful voice actors, I will put the audio in. I will make it sound terrible, which is good because if people’s microphones are not good, I’m still going to give them a shot because it’s easier to make okay audio sound terrible than it is to make okay audio sound amazing.
I will put all the text on screen, & I’ll put everything together. I’ll put the grainy VHS filters onto it, add some static to the background, post it, & call it a day.
14. How many installments do you currently have in the series, & how many do you intend to produce total? (Note: This interview was conducted on August 22nd, 2026).
I’m up to 13 parts. I like to do them in sort of one-minute episodes, & release them one at a time. 8 of those make up volume 1, & the rest are part of the currently releasing volume 2. I don’t like to do it all at once & release it because then I don’t know what people are thinking. I would not have invested so much time into Santa Rosa Aquarium Volume 1 if I didn’t know people were going to like it, do I like to release it piece by piece. I may change that once people have got a bit more faith in me. I release them on TikTok & YouTube.
In terms of plans for the future, I’m halfway through releasing volume 2 right now. I have plans for 5 volumes all together, plus, a 3D rendered short film which will be around 7 minutes long involving someone diving into Deep Blue.
5 volumes is the plan, because that’s how many ideas I have that would be unique without me saying “You thought this was bad? Well something worse has happened, & it’s getting worse!” I don’t want it to be one of those things where I’m continuing it for the sake of continuing it. I’ve got 5 very distinct volumes laid out.
15. What are your plans for the future of the Santa Rosa Aquarium series?
I’ve got big plans! I bought a PC today (August 22nd, 2026). This is my first time using it. Obviously, that ups my production value substantially compared to my iPhone. I’m in the process of trying to learn Blender so I can have some found footage style installments, which helps with the immersion. I want to show that I can go bigger & better. Once I figure out how the hell Blender works, hopefully I can do that.
I did a little bit of work on it today, I figured out how to make a basic cube into a rectangle, & I nearly cheered when I did that. I’ve got a long way to go before I make a realistic aquarium environment.
16. Across your work in oceanic horror, what has been your proudest moment or greatest triumph?
Appearing on a podcast is definitely one of them, it’s a first time for me. Other than that, I would probably say, the views & the likes, they’re great, it keeps people watching & shows people are interested, but for me, I love watching people talk about the episodes in YouTube videos, & make theory episodes. Anyone can scroll past a video, click, & press like, but when people are taking hours, days, or even weeks in some cases, to make a theory video, it’s so flattering. It helps me remember that every number that comes up on my videos is a real person who genuinely cares about what they’re seeing. It’s so fascinating that people are so interested in something I came up with on a whim.
17. Across your time working in oceanic horror, I’m confident that you have encountered your fair share of hurdles & challenges. What is the largest challenge you’ve faced? How have you overcome it?
There’s 2 sort of big ones in the short-term & long-term. The short-term is trying to tell a story while I’m limited in production capability. I was doing everything from my iPhone, so I can’t make a big animation of a dolphin jumping out of the water & grabbing this little boy off a zipline. I’ve got to imply that. I have to use my words to try & scare people rather than outright showing it, so that’s been a big challenge, one hopefully I can overcome soon now that I’ve got a production quality boost. That one’s always been a struggle, because people these days on social media need constant action. They need something going on. They’ve got to start seeing the dolphin bite people, or someone start drowning. They’ve got to see it themselves, but I couldn’t do that. So, I had to try & keep people invested by writing a story. Which is to say, the fact that people are still interested now shows that I successfully managed to do that by some miracle.
In terms of long-term challenges, it’s balancing the realism with the horror. In my eyes, if something’s not possible, it’s not quite as scary. I understand that some of the incidents that happen at Santa Rosa Aquarium couldn’t happen. In one of them, someone gets sucked into a filtration pipe. I had someone in my comments saying “I work in an aquarium, & the filtration pipes are way too small for anyone to get sucked into it.” If you’re coming into it with that belief, you’re coming in to criticize me. You’re looking for an inconsistency to pluck at. You’ve got to suspend your disbelief slightly. I guarantee this is the same person who could watch paranormal activity & get scared by the ghost. I’m sure you can let your mind believe that maybe a filtration pipe was a foot wider than it would be normally. I’ve got to try to balance that realism with the horror, which I’ll admit I’ve still not done perfectly. I’m still working on that.
It’s about trying to find that balance. If it’s too scary, it’s not plausible. I can’t write that 10 people died in the aquarium in one hour, because then obviously it would have been shut down. I’ve got to make it plausible. Yet then, I can’t have 1 person hurt their foot fifty years ago. That’s not scary. I’ve got to find a balance, which I’m still trying to do, but it makes it more difficult when some people are so called experts, & are coming in trying to pluck me apart to find inconsistencies.
18. Do you have any advice for aspiring ocean horror authors, video creators, writers, or voice actors?
I don’t want to sit here preaching & giving advice as if I’ve made it, because the truth is I’m just getting started. My advice is, if you have an idea, whether it be a story, an analog horror, or anything, just do it. Chances are it might be terrible, it might be bad, but a bad concept will be a concept every time because that bad result actually exists. A concept in your mind, no one else can see that. So, until you put that onto paper, a word document, or into a video software, no one’s going to know.
You’ve got to find a balance. If it’s too plausible, it’s probably not scary. If it’s too scary, it’s probably not plausible. I still haven’t found it myself, but the longer you go on, the closer to the middle you will eventually be.
19. Do you have any final words about Santa Rosa Aquarium, the beauty of aquariums, analog horror, or the wonder of the sea?
You’ve got to remember animals aren’t people. Animals don’t abide by the same principles of morality that we do. So, saying that animals are evil, just because of something they do, can be very damaging. Animals will act on instinct. Pointing at animals as evil can cause terrible damage. As great as the film Jaws (1975) is, it caused irreversible damage to sharks.
There is a reason that the animals in Santa Rosa Aquarium act the way they do, there’s more to it than just evil animals acting evil.
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