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.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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