There’s just a month left to go before Chucky comes back to our screens in his own self-titled series, the first time the Child’s Play franchise has materialized on TV. As well as taking the horror universe back to its routes, leaving out some of the wilder, campier elements from the later movies, it’ll also be updating and expanding its remit in fresh ways to give it more depth than ever before.
At least, that’s what creator Don Mancini is promising in this new two-minute featurette for the incoming Syfy show, which you can check out above. In it, Mancini says that we can expect all the usual scares and moments of black comedy, but also some surprisingly emotional material, too.
“People will laugh and they will scream in the ways that they expect,” he says, “but I also hope to make people cry.”
The heart of the series promises to be the “very sweet teen gay romance”, as Mancini puts it, between Zachary Arthur’s protagonist, Jake Wheeler, a boy who finds Chucky at a yard sale, and his boyfriend, Devon (Björgvin Arnarson).
“We explore a very sweet teen gay romance that I think people might be surprised at the depth of it, and I think it has a whiff of real life pain.”
Mancini went on to say that old-school fans will have much to enjoy, with the featurette including glimpses of Jennifer Tilly and Fiona Dourif, both of whom are back as popular characters Tiffany Valentine and Fiona Dourif, but newcomers will get hooked on the show’s “rich story”.
“Longstanding fans will of course find plenty of what they’ve come to love,” Mancini concluded, “but new fans I think are going to find a surprisingly rich story, with complex characters.”
On top of all that, Chucky has also been confirmed to explore the origins story of Charles Lee Ray, who is once again voiced by Brad Dourif, with it revealed how his twisted childhood turned him into a killer in the first place.
Mancini, who serves as showrunner alongside Brand New Cherry Flavor‘s Nick Antosca, wrote and directed the pilot episode for Chucky. Catch the eight-episode first season when it premieres on Syfy and USA Network on October 12th.