It's a Great Time for Creepy Movie Trailers

With a new adaptation of It and Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, both due in September, things are looking up for the horror genre, which has been stale as the air in the haunted houses it’s fixated on for about a decade now. And here’s another hopeful sign: The trailer for The Killing of a Sacred Deer, featuring Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrel and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, Dogtooth). It’s due in November but premiered earlier this year at Cannes and currently has a 74 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

The trailer packs enough in its 78 seconds to make it legitimately intriguing:

A haunting cover of a pop song? Check. (It’s Ellie Goulding’s “Burn” sung acapella.)

An almost disorienting refusal to convey what the hell this thing is about? Check. (The Rotten Tomatoes synopsis says: “The highly anticipated drama The Killing of a Sacred Deer reunites director Yorgos Lanthimos with The Lobster star Colin Farrell who plays Steven, a charismatic surgeon forced to make an unthinkable sacrifice after his life starts to fall apart and the behavior of a teenage boy he has taken under his wing turns sinister.”)

Superstars looking tense? Check. (Do they know what this movie is about?)

Many different styles of moving one’s body through space, including various walking paces and dragging oneself down stairs using only one’s arms? Check.

Looks good!