Teacup is a horrifically bad horror series

This show could have been an email. We’re not kidding. Peacock’s new horror-tinged sci-fi thriller isn’t only one of the least imaginative shows of 2024; it’s also crackling with so much dead air that each 35-minute episode could be trimmed down to a tight five. The amount of times characters tell each other how scared they are could fill the runtime of a Marvel movie. Take this exchange between two teens: “I’m petrified.” “I’m petrified, too.” “We can be petrified together.” “Yeah, maybe we can.” (Also, when was the last time you heard a Zoomer use the word “petrified” in casual conversation?) Teacup is nominally the creation of writer-producer Ian McCulloch (Yellowstone, Chicago Fire), but the writing is so soulless and the plot so tropey that we have a sneaking suspicion it was penned by ChatGPT. 

Based on Robert R. McCammon’s 1988 novel Stinger, Teacup is set on a farm in Georgia that’s home to the repressed Chenoweth family. The residents include Maggie (Yvonne Strahovski), a level-headed veterinarian; her two cardboard children, Arlo (Caleb Dolden) and Meryl (Emilie Bierre); her husband, James (Scott Speedman), who mostly walks around the house mumbling; and James’ mother, Ellen (Kathy Baker), who has an ax to grind with her daughter-in-law. 

There are, naturally, things in the woods: a giant wolf, a possessed lady covered in blood (Adelina Anthony), and sinister guys in old-timey gas masks. So of course adorable moppet Arlo goes wandering through the trees after dark, where he crosses paths with the possessed lady and then his eyes go all glowy. He stumbles home and starts saying creepy things that alarm his family, because he’s now the Three-Eyed Raven—er, the harbinger—who speaks for the aliens who are causing those things to be in the woods. 

You might think this is leading up to thrills and chills, or at least running and hiding. Instead, there’s just a lot of murmuring and angst among the Chenoweths and their neighbors, who are also sheltering in the farmhouse, among them the Shanley family (Diany Rodriguez, Luciano Leroux, and Chaske Spencer). There’s also Donald Kelly (Boris McGiver), a gun-toting good ol’ boy who stalks through the forest while saying stuff that’s happening around him out loud (“Dead body…pitch-black…big bad fuckin’ dog…”).

We perked up when the show introduced some John Carpenter-style body horror into the mix. If our heroes cross a spray-painted line in the grass, they rapidly decay on the spot and turn into ghastly statues. But then the action grinds to a halt again so we can be treated to stunning insights like: “Sometimes people act like one thing even though they’re something else.” No shit!

You know who doesn’t deserve to be part of this travesty? Strahovski, whose subtle, chilling performance in The Handmaid’s Tale earned her two Emmy noms. On Teacup, she’s given little to do but gaze at her possessed son with big, worried eyes and ask various people how they’re holding up as she bandages their wounds. (They are, of course, scared. She is also scared.) Baker, a solid character actor who’s made an indelible mark in projects like Cold Mountain and The Cider House Rules, also deserves better. Ellen is probably Teacup’s most interesting character—ya gotta love a mother-in-law who casually shoots someone in the head—but she doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time. 

Meanwhile, Rob Morgan and Jackson Kelly do have actual fun as the gas-mask boys; their stylish, weird performances hint at how much more compelling this show could have been if it leaned into its oddball premise. The same can be said for the soundtrack, which boasts surprising needle drops like Harry Nilsson’s “Think About Your Troubles” and Noel Coward’s “I Went To A Marvelous Party.” 

Teacup is clearly trying to appeal to fans of M. Night Shyamalan’s oeuvre and intimate horror flicks like A Quiet Place, but it drops the ball at every turn. A handful of arresting visuals—a crow pecking at a dead man’s eye socket, an otherworldly tree encased in an undulating, rainbow-colored oil slick—can’t make up for the fact that this show is about as compelling as a sack of horse feed. 

Teacup premieres October 10 on Peacock