James Wan’s imagination knows no bounds between the horrors of The Conjuring, Insidious, and Saw franchises, and his periodic visits to television are now taking a new turn with Teacup. This Peacock series further hails from producers including Wan/Atomic Monster, Ian McCullough, Michael Clear, and E.L. Katz, who of course are some of the minds behind The Haunting of Bly Manor, M3GAN, Archive 81, and more.
In addition to those behind the subject matter, this series will star Yvonne Strahovski, who is of course familiar to Handmaid’s Tale and Dexter viewers, but also Scott Speedman, who appeared in an immensely unsettling home invasion film, 2008’s The Strangers. While speaking about the film at the most recent San Diego Comic-Con, Speedman declared that he did feel those same vibes while working on Teacup, so let’s dig into what’s been revealed.
Plot
Robert McCammon’s Bram Stoker Award-nominated and New York Times-bestselling Stinger serves as the backbone for this story that will take place over 48 hours. Via Hollywood Reporter, the book has been stripped down to focus upon minimal characters, including a family that, said Speedman, is moving through a stressful set of circumstances before and during the story.
According to the film’s synopsis, Teacup “follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat in order to survive.” Co-executive producer Ian McCullough pointed towards the story’s minimalism, adding that “[we] focus on the characters and the predicament they’re going through, but we don’t need to fill it out with a bunch of stuff we don’t need.” Wan alternately described the series as both “meditative” but also “so big and scary.”
Will there be gore? Yvonne Strahovski revealed that a specific prosthetic “genuinely made me feel sick.” Additionally, she admitted to have expected a less emotionally strenuous experience than Handmaid’s Tale but that this undertaking wasn’t as simple as she imagined that it would be. From every hint thus far, however, this series won’t last nearly as long as her time on Handmaid’s Tale, so perhaps a romcom (or a nice trip to the beach) will be in order for her next for some stress relief.
Cast
The Teacup cast includes Yvonne Strahovski (Handmaid’s Tale, Dexter), Scott Speedman (The Strangers, Grey’s Anatomy), and Chaske Spencer (The English) along with Kathy Baker and Boris McGiver.
Release Date
Teacup will debut on October 10 with two episodes and two more each week until October 31.
Trailer
A few options already surfaced. In the first, some ominous teacup patterns tell us nothing, but in the second, second, hellish farmhouse events begin.