What is the best film, TV show, and book to be checking out this spooky season? That’s the question we recently put to Stephen King when he and his writer son Joe Hill called EW to chat about Netflix’s adaptation of their novella In the Tall Grass . Unsurprisingly, the author of The Shining had some thoughts on the subject!

Film: Child’s Play remake

“I didn’t go see it in the theaters, because I thought, ‘Well, this is just another warmed-over sequel,'” says King. “Mark Hamill does the voice of Chucky and I just f—ing loved that movie. I laughed and I cried at the things in there. Everybody who’s in the movie does a terrific job. It’s a smart script and it’s just a load of fun. It really is. It’s gruesome as hell. There’s this scene where this guy is [laughs] hanging some Christmas lights on his house, and Chucky does something to the ladder, and he falls off and he lands on his feet, and his bones come right out the side [now convulsing with laughter] of his legs. And you know, it’s not funny, but at the same time it is funny.”