Under The Skin’s Mesmerizing Red-Band Trailer Stares Into The Void
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If I could tell you why this trailer is red-banded, I would. Maybe you just say the word “shit” over and over again as you watch it.
As the spiritual bookend to Spike Jonze’s Her, Jonathan Glazer’s upcoming sci-fi moodfest Under the Skin will feature a full-bodied Scarlett Johansson silently seducing men to the point that they are removed from existence, instead of just being an artificially intelligent voice whose existence is a philosophical conversation in and of itself. More importantly to some, this is the first time Johansson will appear disrobed on camera, probably while eating someone’s brains just to negate any positive sexuality. This nudity is why one may have thought (or loudly hoped) this trailer was banded red, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. In fact, it’s mostly just rapid-cut images we’ve already seen before in previous teasers, only with positive publication blurbs firing off over some of them.
So it doesn’t exactly feel like a new preview, especially since over half of it is a round pit of blackness that switches into an eyeball, but it’s just as mysterious and slightly off-putting as everything else we’ve seen. It’s one of our most anticipated movies here at GFR, as quiet, experimental sci-fi is always overshadowed by big, booming blockbusters.
Based in the loosest possible way on Dutch author Michel Faber’s 2000 novel, Under the Skin follows Laura (Johansson), an alien preying upon men in the Scottish countryside, using her sexuality to draw them into her wild and wacky world of negative space and black ooze. It’s not exactly clear if the plot gets any more complicated than this, and early reviews from the film’s festival screenings don’t tend to go any deeper into the story’s structure. Do I have a problem watching Scar-Jo pick up hitchhikers in order to kill them? Of course not. In fact, I think it should be a reality TV show.
A handful of stills from the film have also been released recently, most of which are also things we’ve already seen from the trailer. I’m thinking this movie is probably just six 15-minute-long close-ups of eyeballs, with another 10 minutes of characters turning into weird blue shapes, like the following two images, the second of which is pulled from the trailer.
And here are a few more, followed by the trailer. You can find yourself lured into Laura’s inky web when Under the Skin hits theaters on April 4. Just remember to use protection, like a ray gun or something.
