Don Mancini is a unique voice in the horror genre. He’s written some great scripts for the best horror shows (Channel Zero, Hannibal, Tales from the Crypt), but he’s mainly known for co-writing the Chucky franchise with John Lafia, starting with Child’s Play. Since then, he’s been mainly responsible for maintaining and continuing what is arguably the highest quality franchise in horror history; nothing feels like just a cash grab, and the stories and characters develop, while the kills, humor, and satire continues. Mancini wrote all eight of those films, and directed the last three before creating the surprise hit show, Chucky, which airs on SyFy and USA, and streams on Peacock. Mancini spoke with us about season three and the themes and evolution of the franchise.

Taking Chucky to TV
Syfy / USA

“You know, one of the reasons I wanted to bring Chucky into the realm of TV was, because having worked in it a bit, I saw how fundamentally collaborative it was, even more than movies,” explained Mancini. “It just involves, at its best, a lot of very smart, talented people, starting in the writers room, but then also the roster of directors and producers. I’ve been really fortunate.” He continued:

“Partly I think it’s smart selections on my part, but it’s also partly chance that I’ve just been really fortunate to work on the show with so many smart writers, fellow writers, directors, producers, and they all have helped elevate the franchise. I think it’s not surprising to me in a way that, you know, this iteration of the franchise seems to have gone over as well as it has, because it required bringing in new voices, new talents, and I think that it’s just made it better. It’s not just me, it’s a lot of, as I said, really smart people helping push this boulder up the hill.”

“I learned from them so much, especially the directors, but it’s the writers too,” continued Mancini. “I mean, when I first started working in television, I was just so struck in the room by how there are a lot of really good writers in television. There really are, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to do it. And I learned things from them every day. But you know, we have certain house directors on the show now, Jeff Renfroe, John Hyams, Samir Rehem, and they all have far more experience as directors than I do. You know, I’ve done three features and two episodes of television, while they all individually have like dozens and dozens of hours of experience and stuff that they put on screen. And so there were vast amounts of experience, which is so important to the show.”

“And you know,” added Mancini, “sometimes I’ll see one of the other directors, they’ll set up a shot, and it’s like the Steadicam, they’re like figure skating around the set, and I’ll go like, ‘Fu*k you,'” joked Mancini. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I didn’t think of that. That’s so great.’ That happens a lot, and sometimes I feel a little threatened [because] they’re so good. But again, it makes the show better.”

Queer Kills
Syfy / USA

Two of the most entertaining consistencies in the Chucky franchise are its inclusion and emphasis of drag, gender fluidity, and queerness, along with its increasing ingenuity in designing new and wicked kills. “Starting with Bride of Chucky, I’ve always tried to bring a queer sensibility to the franchise, because that’s just been important to me as a queer man, as a gay man,” said Mancini.

“And I think it’s just really important that we live in a world now, where we can make these stories, where gay, lesbian, and trans young people can have points of identification amongst the characters in the show. So you know, we’ve done that with the relationship between the characters of Jake and Devin and their ongoing romance, and we continue developing that in season three as well. We have a lot of queer writers in the room, and I think that that’s really helped inform that material.”

Related: Exclusive: Chucky Makeup Designer on the Changes of the Killer Doll Over Decades

And then, as we mentioned, there are the kills. Season three of Chucky continues the doll’s murder spree in spectacular fashion, with surprisingly gruesome and unpredictable kills. It’s part of the franchise’s legacy. “It’s just something that we’ve always tried to do, even in the movies. I think it’s part of Chucky’s character, that he’s creative,” explained Mancini. “I mean, he’s also of course known for just a good simple knifing, about which he himself says, ‘a true classic never goes out of style.'”

But beyond that, it really started in Bride of Chucky when Tiffany challenges him, like, ‘Oh, come on, drag yourself into the ’90s, get more creative. And so I think it’s an expectation that the fans have, and we don’t want to disappoint them. And my own predilection in the horror genre, I’m really attracted to stylized, or being incongruous, beautiful, and elegant with it whenever possible.

That incongruity and elegance continues with the Chucky TV series; it often feels like a bunch of very talented theater kids got some financing and can do whatever the hell they want, and it’s great.

YA Horror and Alex Vincent
Syfy / USA

Something new, though, is the series’ heavy crossover into the YA subgenre, which weirdly works. “One of the things that I wanted to do with the show, something we hadn’t done before, was make it kind of a YA show,” explained Mancini, “and I think that Chucky goes really well with the YA genre because our aesthetic in this franchise has always been sort of style and elevated, not in the snotty ‘elevated horror’ way.” He elaborated:

We’re just theatrical, and I think that’s the way teenagers experience emotions — the experience at that age, your emotions, they’re just so powerful. And I think that the expression of those emotions through the metaphoric lens of the horror genre can be really powerful. So that’s one of the things I wanted to do with it.

An interesting aspect of the Chucky franchise, the thing that makes it weirdly perfect for YA sensibilities despite the bloody violence, is the fact that it often necessitates child actors. It is, after all, a series about a doll. One of the delights of the Chucky TV series was seeing an all-grown-up Alex Vincent, who played the first kid in the franchise, Andy Barclay, in Child’s Play. “I’ve known Alex since he was a little six or seven-year-old kid. And you know, one of the interesting things about this job, in a franchise called Child’s Play, I have a lot of creative, professional collaborators who are children,” explained Mancini.

Related: Why Chucky Season 2 Is a Huge Win for the Child’s Play Franchise

He continued:

“It’s just a really unusual situation, and Alex was the first, and seeing Alex grow up and become a really cool and nice guy, I just was very happy to see that he evolved that way. Because that’s not necessarily the way it always works with children actors. So that was part of it. But also, the fans love him. They love the character, Andy Barclay. They love Alex himself. You know, he’s been going to cons for decades. He’s just a beloved figure, not only in our franchise, but in the horror genre, generally. So, you know, from that perspective, we’re simply lucky to have him.”

“It’s also been really gratifying in the last 10 years that I’ve been working with him as an adult, when we first brought him back in Curse of Chucky and then in Cult, and now with the show, to see his growth as an actor has been really cool to see,” continued Mancini. “And in episode three, I just thought he really brought it, I thought he was fantastic in it.”

Don Mancini’s pretty fantastic himself. Season three of Chucky premiered Oct. 4, with new episodes on Wednesdays at 9/8c on SyFy and the USA Network. Episodes stream on Peacock the next day. The season will be split into two parts, with the second batch of episodes airing next year. You can watch the third season trailer below: