If you’ve seen the excellent Ex Machina and Annihilation, you know that any movie coming from writer/director Alex Garland is likely going to be worth watching. While this first trailer for his upcoming film Men doesn’t look like a science fiction story like his previous work, watch it and tell me you don’t believe something preternatural is going on.
The only thing we know about the plot is this: When a woman (I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ Jessie Buckley) learns of the death of her ex-husband, she takes a vacation to the English countryside. That’s it. It sounds innocuous enough… until this happens:
See what I mean? While Buckley’s character gets terrorised by a mysterious man played by No Time to Die’s Rory Kinnear, it’s unclear how… well, real the man is. First, he’s standing in the garden in a tracksuit, only to disappear from sight, followed by the very unnerving shot of all the fruit falling from the tree he was standing by. But then that also seems to be Kinnear, looking very much the worse for wear, viscerally trying to stick his arm through the mail slot of her door.
Then there’s the unsettling Green Man imagery in the church Buckley’s character visits, which is accompanied by the faint sound of a scream? All signs point to something supernaturally horrific happening here, or at the very least that Buckley believes something supernaturally horrifying is happening to her. And yet, the scariest part of the trailer to me is the man at the far end of the tunnel, who starts running towards her without saying a word, giving her (and the audience) all the time in the world to think about the threat to come.
Men, which also stars I May Destroy You’s Paapa Essiedu, will premiere in theatres on May 20.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.