The Third Parent Teaser Drops — Crispin Glover’s Tommy Taffy Is Moving In and You Don’t Get a Say

It’s the Fourth of July. The grill’s still warm, the sparklers are fizzling out in the driveway — and there’s a strange man in your kitchen, telling your kids to call him Dad.

You didn’t invite him. Nobody did. He’s very polite about it, which is somehow the worst part.

Lock the doors, fiends. Then check behind them.

Watch the Trailer

Quick Specs

• The news: Bleecker Street dropped the first official teaser for The Third Parent on October 14.
• Based on: Elias Witherow’s viral creepypasta — the r/nosleep story from 2016 that grew into sequels and a novel.
• The setup: during a Fourth of July celebration, a disturbing figure named Tommy Taffy emerges, disguises himself as human, infiltrates a suburban neighborhood, and imposes authoritarian rule over one unsuspecting family. He has decided he is their third parent.
• Cast: Rob Lowe (Mason “Cap” Hollow), Crispin Glover (Tommy Taffy), Roselyn Sánchez (Megan Hollow), with Rafael de Belligny, Bethany Milner, and Gary Michael Walters.
• Writer-director: David Michaels — feature debut, after the Macabre Theatre series and shorts.
• In theaters: January 22, 2027, via Bleecker Street.
• Produced by Gary Michael Walters, Spencer Young, Jonathan Halperyn, Daniel Kresmery, and Rob Lowe. Shot in Budapest.

So here’s the pitch, and it’s a doozy: the monster doesn’t kick the door down. He rings the doorbell, smiles, and starts setting house rules.

The teaser itself is a minute of pure unease — childlike chalk drawings, Rob Lowe encountering something wrong outside his house, and Crispin Glover doing what Crispin Glover does better than anyone alive: being deeply, specifically unsettling without raising his voice. (Some actors play creepy. Glover is a haunted house with a SAG card.)

Full disclosure, up front, because that’s how we do things here: nobody outside Bleecker Street has seen this movie. This is a teaser, not a verdict — but as first looks go, it’s doing exactly what a first look should. It tells you the rules of the nightmare and leaves the rest in the dark.

The creepypasta-to-screen pipeline is officially a whole genre beat now — and after our 5/5 on Backrooms, color us interested in wherever this one’s crawling from.

Trivia & Facts

• The original story hit Reddit’s r/nosleep in 2016 and snowballed into follow-ups and a full novel.
• Glover told Bloody Disgusting he deliberately never read the creepypasta — best to stick with the script — and that a Tommy Taffy prosthetic was built, then scrapped when there wasn’t time to develop it. Casting Glover made it unnecessary.
• Glover has slasher blood in the family tree: he played Jimmy in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984).
• Lowe pulls double duty — he stars and produces.
• The film shot in Budapest and marks writer-director David Michaels’ feature debut.

Harper’s Extras

• our 5/5 review of Backrooms — the last time internet horror crawled onto the big screen and bit.
• our Friday the 13th review — Glover family business, of a sort.
• the Crystal Lake tracker — because once Jason’s on your mind, there’s no getting him off.

Where to Watch

Not yet, fiends — The Third Parent arrives in theaters January 22, 2027. Watch this space (and the teaser above) until then.

FAQ

• When does The Third Parent release? January 22, 2027, in theaters via Bleecker Street.
• Is it based on a true story? No — it’s based on Elias Witherow’s fictional creepypasta series.
• Who is Tommy Taffy? The entity at the center of it — played by Crispin Glover — who appoints himself the family’s “third parent.”
• Where can I watch the teaser? Right above, in the Watch the Trailer section — the official Bleecker Street teaser.

Until the next nightmare, fiends.

Teaser coverage via Dread Central and iHorror.