Editorials
The Queer Horror of “Chucky”: Episode 7 – “Twice The Grieving, Double The Loss”
Each week Joe Lipsett will highlight a key scene or interaction in Don Mancini’s Chucky series to consider how the show is engaging with and contributing to queer horror.
We’re into the homestretch now. This penultimate episode of Chucky’s first season* really kicks the plot into overdrive as everyone descends upon Hackensack and the show sets the literal stage for a big finale at a charity screening of Frankenstein.
*USA Network and SYFY better renew this show. We’ve all seen the numbers!
Mixed in among the legion of Chucky dolls at 987 Sherwood Lane, Jennifer Tilly vamping it up in a near-literal Black Widow dress, and Junior (Teo Briones) murdering his father Logan (Devon Sawa), there’s also a really important character moment to discuss.
Obviously “Twice The Grieving, Double The Loss” is tough for Junior and Devon (Björgvin Arnarson), who both lost their mothers last week. They deal with the grief in different ways: Junior succumbs to devilish temptation and kills his father at Chucky (Brad Dourif)’s behest (there’s a conversation about cyclical violence to be had here, but that’s for another piece). Devon, meanwhile, pushes Jake (Zackary Arthur) away, retreating into the comfort of his true crime obsession.
The one thing that both boys do is blame Jake. Junior lashes out at him for being a curse (heh), while Devon pulls away, arguing that “being around you hurts.” Jake, in return, opts to pack a bag, steal cash from his drunk uncle and head for the bus station. And that’s where the queer horror of this episode is located: homelessness and Chosen Family.
It’s significant that when the pair experienced trauma in the past, they turned to each other and (eventually) Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) for support. While we saw in the last episode that Devon’s mother was supportive of his queerness, she still wasn’t the one he confided in or relied upon when he was in trouble. Jake, meanwhile, has never had a parent that he could turn to, which continues in this episode as Logan drinks away his grief and passes out on the couch. Both of these storylines align with the experiences of the characters throughout the season, which has repeatedly been defined by a divide between teens and adults (a common YA trope, which Chucky absolutely is).
The fact that Jake nearly winds up homeless and Devon expresses concerns about being put into foster care are both incredibly legitimate concerns for queer youth. According to Youth.Gov:
LGBT youth experience homelessness at higher rates than non-LGBT youth for a range of reasons. A recent study of more than 350 runaway and homeless providers throughout the United States identified four top causes for homelessness among LGBT youth: (1) family rejection resulting from sexual orientation or gender identity; (2) physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; (3) aging out of the foster care system; and (4) financial and emotional neglect.
Significantly, when Jake returns from the bus station, he does not go to his blood relatives. Instead he goes to Lexy, who remarks that his decision to abandon his Chosen family – meaning her and Devon – is selfish. While her word choice is a touch cruel, the sentiment is powerful. Going back to episode one when Jake’s father failed to support his sexual orientation, Chucky has been engaging in a dialogue about the value of finding your Chosen – or Found – Family, which, according to GLAAD, is “a group of supportive people providing unconditional support.”
Chosen family is not an exclusively queer concept, but it tends to be more relevant to our lived experiences, particularly the 39% of queer adults who have faced rejection from their birth families. Lexy’s use of the term is a reflection of two things: 1) it is emblematic of just how far the character has come from those early episodes, but also 2) how she – and by extension the show – views her friendship with Jake and Devon. The words are also a signal to queer audiences who will recognize and understand the depth and importance of the term, which explains why Lexy and Jake are willing to lay their lives on the line to rescue Devon heading into the finale.
After all, these three really only have each other now and nothing is more important than (Chosen) family. We’ll see if it’s enough to get them through the battle to come.
Chucky airs Tuesdays on Syfy and USA Network. For more coverage, see Meagan’s review of episode seven.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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