Peacock’s Teacup is unlike any other horror show — because it doesn’t try to be.
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, creator Ian McCulloch and several cast members discussed what sets the series apart from other shows.
“It’s very astute that it feels like a movie because that is the idea of the shorter episodes,” McCulloch explained. “It is not only because we want to leave the audience wanting more — so they move on to the next episode — but there’s an economy of storytelling. In the end, it should feel like a single piece, which is what a movie is.”
McCulloch noted that it “was very much by design” that each episode was fast-paced the entire time.
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Based on Robert McCammon‘s book Stinger, Teacup follows a group of people in rural Georgia who must come together to survive a terrifying phenomenon killing animals and humans alike. The first two episodes, which started streaming on Thursday, October 9, left characters and Us with more questions than answers about what is behind this danger. The show stars Scott Speedman, Yvonne Strahovski, Chaske Spencer, Kathy Baker, Boris McGiver, Caleb Dolden, Emilie Bierre and Luciano Leroux.
“We didn’t have any extra fat [with the stories]. After a while you can’t just tell one thorough story, you have to go off on some different avenues. We didn’t want that sort of experience. We wanted people to just keep going and keep going,” he continued. “While at the same time, you want to make sure that you’re not throwing things in just to do a twist or a turn.”
It was all about balancing the horror with the overarching story. “You want [viewers] to have it feel like an experience that they want to get back to,” McCulloch concluded. “It’s a single experience as opposed to, ‘I watched an episode and now I’ll go off and I’ll come back in a month or two and watch another one.’ I want them on the edge of their seat throughout the season.”
Horror fans will be excited to know that James Wan is an executive producer on the series following his successes with horror franchises Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring. Behind the camera, E.L. Katz has been credited for directing the first two episodes after working on The Haunting of Bly Manor and Channel Zero.
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Given Wan’s Saw connection, it’s no surprise that Teacup does not hold back on the goreas the main group at the center of the show tries to figure out what has caused multiple animals and people to die within their vicinity. The answer remains unclear for now but Teacup showed that crossing an unseen line causes the person’s skin to come off their body as their insides spill out.
“The key was that we have the audience and the characters interacting with a person who’s saying, ‘Don’t cross this line.’ It’s literally a line on the ground. If you’re going to do that and you’re going to get away with it, then you have to show those characters and the audience that if you do cross this line, it’s the worst possible thing that you could possibly do,” McCulloch noted. “The way you do that is you show them the worst possible thing. So what we did was we said, ‘What’s the worst possible thing? How do we make that something that people haven’t necessarily seen before? And how do we show that without it becoming, without them becoming desensitized to it and that desensitized to it?’”
The screenwriter continued: “That’s where we only do it sparingly. It doesn’t happen every episode. It’s something that you say, ‘Here’s why you don’t cross the line. You get it right?’ Yes, we get it because we all screamed and it’s gross and it’s scary and it’s horrifying. Then you can move on to the next part of the story. You’ve set that in stone, if you will.”
Morgan, 51, who plays McNab, is excited for fans to see the story beyond the horror, telling Us, “[Teacup is different because of] the humanity thread with all the characters and what investment the writers put into flushing out these characters. So it could be attracted by the audience — something that they can relate to on a real level.”
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Meanwhile, Spencer, 49, urges viewers to see the larger picture.
“It’s the drama that goes on underneath of what’s happening in the forefront,” the actor, who portrays Ruben, shared. “Like Rob said, the audience is going to relate to that. There is a lot of humanity with those characters.”
The first two episodes of Teacup are currently streaming on Peacock. Two episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays through Halloween.
