Now that Peacock’s newest horror series Teacup is almost here, the streamer behind the James Wan-produced series is ramping things up. Ahead of its two-episode premiere tomorrow, October 10, the streamer has released a new sneak peek at the series, ensuring you won’t want to be alone after dark for a good while.
For those of us that aren’t already terrified of gas masks after watching the Doctor Who episode “The Empty Child” as kids, showrunner Ian McCulloch ensures that you absolutely will be, as sars Chaske Spencer and Scott Speedman go up against a mysterious stranger wearing one in the new clip. Bearing a dry erase board that says “don’t cross the line” — referring to the line in the dirt the two men stand across, the figure simply stands there ominously, unspeaking.
When Spencer and Speedman attempt to approach him, however, he draws a gun, proving that his Good Samaritan advice might not be just that. While the clip ends before anything else happens, we can assume he leaves our stars stranded, as they find themselves trapped on their land without power or resources, forced to work together with a disparate group of strangers against an unknown threat.
Teacup is adapted from the novel Stinger by Robert McCammon, moving the action from Texas to Georgia and downsizing its cast. While the original novel put an entire town up against an unknown threat, the series follows only a small group of people, told over the course of “a single harrowing day,” as executive producer Ian McCulloch describes it:
The series is now very much its own thing: a puzzle-box mystery, an edge-of-your-seat thriller, a can’t-but-must look horror story, a family drama, a science fiction epic—of the keyhole variety, of course. But as singular, strange, and surprising as I hope Teacup is, all you need to do is peel away the layers, characters, situations, and mythology and look behind the thrills, chills, hairpin turns and make-you gasp reveals. Do all that and you’ll see, at its heart, Teacup is still very much standing on the shoulders of Stinger. Just as it should.
Teacup’s cast includes Speedman, Spencer, Yvonne Strahovski, Kathy Baker, Boris McGiver, Caleb Dolden, Emilie Bierre, and Luciano Leroux, with Azrael director E.L. Katz helming the first two episodes. Wan serves as executive producer, with McCammon also serving as producer.
The thirty-minute series premieres on Peacock on October 10, with two episodes releasing weekly. Check out the new clip below:
