Building on the success of its online spoofs and cartoons, Degrassi: The Next Generation is getting into horror with a special Halloween episode, ‘Degrassi of the Dead,’ set to run Wednesday on CTV and its website.

Director and co-producer Stefan Brogren of Epitome Pictures tells Playback Daily the ‘zombisode’ — which was shot in one day during a short hiatus in May — was initially meant just for the web, but it turned out ‘better than we could’ve imagined.’

‘After we shot, the consensus was to try to get a broadcast date for it and turn it into a half-hour Halloween special,’ says Brogren, who also plays teacher Mr. Simpson on the show, following his turn as Snake on Degrassi Junior High. He produces with long-time Degrassi crew member Stephanie Cohen.

The half-hour special is broken down into two parts, and follows Manny (Cassie Steele) and Paige (Lauren Collings) as they try to survive an invasion of zombies at the school. The second half features a behind-the-scenes look at the making of ‘Degrassi of the Dead’ with cast interviews.

Brogren, who directs many web initiatives for the series, including its spoofs of popular TV shows such as Lost and 24, notes it was a completely different shoot than what the cast and crew is used to.

‘Usually we’re dealing with kids being pushed into lockers or other school-related stuff, but now we were asking [the crew] to blow up the school and make our entire cast undead,’ he quips. Brogren turned to his brother, Paul Brogren at Toronto FX shop Alphachannel, for CGI work on the zombisode.

Degrassi has experimented with web featurettes and ‘mangasodes’ in the past, including two short cartoons that debuted on the CTV Broadband Network in February.

Epitome director of digital media and merchandising Chris Jackson says those played well with the younger crowd, and expects it won’t be much different for the zombisode.

‘We were pretty happy with the traffic that we got from the mangosodes in terms of numbers of viewers and how long they were staying… we were surprised at the demographic. There were a lot of younger viewers,’ he says.

‘Degrassi of the Dead’ premieres Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET on CTV, while the episode will go live at ctv.ca at 3:30 p.m. It will also be available on demand at mtv.ca.