We knew we were feeling a little too comfortable lately, a little too confident in our grasp on reality. Luckily, this double-header of hotly anticipated femme-centric terror has arrived just in time to tear that rug right back out from under us! This week, enter the trailer park at your own risk and get ready for searingly brilliant performances, fascinating filmmaking techniques, and profoundly unsettling scenarios. These. Previews. Will. Haunt. You.
Unsane (In theaters March 23, 2018)
Oops, this hit us right in the zeitgeist. Or do we mean gaslight? Fans of fare like The Handmaid’s Tale that are looking to indulge in a fresh, new, uniquely estro-centric hell certainly won’t be disappointed by this nasty little piece of work, which famed film geek Steven Soderbergh filmed entirely on iPhone cameras. He’s called the process “liberating”, which is a funny thing to say considering this is a movie about imprisonment in the most holistic and traumatic sense. But hey, we get it: The camerawork is brilliantly intrusive and intimate, infusing every scene with a raw immediacy that serves as a powerful reminder that we’re all equipped with a pocket-sized surveillance device that allows us to watch and be watched at all times. Claire Foy (who starred opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in the acclaimed drama Wreckers, but who you probably know from Netflix’s The Crown) is pitch-perfect here as the unfortunate Sawyer — by turns stoic and frayed, profoundly nervy and convincingly unconvinced of her own sanity. Everything, every single thing in this Kafka-esque trailer is made that much more terrifying by how utterly POSSIBLE it all feels. It’s a disquietude that seeps right into the marrow of our bones.
Hereditary (In theatres June 8, 2018)
In a tragic twist of a cold knife, Toni Collette is sharing the screen with Ann Dowd and we can’t even get excited about it because we’re so ridiculously scared! This trailer contains enough in its limited runtime to win domestic horror bingo several times over — have you seen a creepier child in your whole entire life? Milly Shapiro, you are now an icon and we bow to you — and it comes riding a swell of Sundance buzz so powerful it could probably wipe out a small coastal hamlet. You can’t choose your family, and (like Alzheimer’s, hair loss, and debt) you often can’t control what they share with you. What has the matriarch of the family in Hereditary left behind as her metaphysical legacy? At the end of the preview, we’re left with far more questions than answers, as well as an overwhelming sense of dread. We looked up director Ari Aster in an attempt at greater clarity, and let’s just say that if his past work, which includes short films Munchausen and The Strange Thing About the Johnsons, is any indication, we’re going to be leaving the theater feeling…uh, some type of way. Like, some combination of nonplussed, aghast, and destabilized that has no English translation (but probably a German one). As part of a new horror renaissance that includes The Witch and Gets Out, Hereditary is already being hailed as the scariest movie of the year. And honestly, if it’s not, we don’t really want to know what will be.
Do you love previews? We sure do! The Trailer Park is where to find hot takes on the coolest Coming Attractions (popcorn not included).
