One of 2018’s most anticipated films, Ex Machina director Alex Garland’s Annihilation, now has a trailer.
Annihilation is based on a novel by Jeff VanderMeer, and it’s one of the best horror novels to come out in recent years. The film boasts an impressive cast, including Natalie Portman, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Oscar Isaac. The trailer opens with a shot of a five-woman team walking across a wide field and into a strange barrier. Beyond the translucent wall is Area X: a lush, surrealistic world cut off from our own, in which nature has returned in some bizarre ways. We then see Portman’s character back in a clean room, being questioned about what she saw on her mission in that world.
We see hints of the answer: bodies caught in fungal growths, strange landscapes, and bizarre creatures. Portman’s character is tasked with figuring out what happened to her husband, who entered Area X, only to return and be hospitalized. It’s clear that the place has a strange, transformative effect on anyone who enters it.
Annihilation hits theaters on February 23rd, 2018. From this brief glimpse, it’s clear that Garland is really capturing some of the utter strangeness and surrealism that defined the novel.
