Universal Pictures have released the first full trailer and poster for M. Night Shyamalan’s new horror-thriller, Old. It will be the 14th film Shyamalan has directed, and adds to his rich catalogue of famed mystery horrors.
The film follows a family that trips to a secluded beach for the day, only to find that their tropical destination is causing them to age rapidly. In the creepy trailer we see Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps star as the parents of Trent and Maddox, who are played by Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie respectively. The cast also includes the likes of Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, and Nikki Amuka-Bird. The newly-released trailer pairs with an equally sinister looking poster—a half-decaying body sat by an encroaching tide—to set audiences up for another typically tense, twisty Shyamalan project.
Old is adapted from Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters’ graphic novel Sandcastle, a story that Shyamalan was introduced to by his daughters. It was filmed in the Dominican Republic, and was one of the first productions to commence following the initial coronavirus outbreak. A teaser trailer for the film had previously been released back in February during the Super Bowl.
We get to see the best of the Caribbean coast in the trailer, but it also provides the backdrop to an unsettling flurry of narrative reveals. The children find personal possessions scattered across the beach, stumble on a dead body, and then skip through years of their lives in seemingly hours. It appears they cannot escape the beach, nor can they stop ageing. It is a typically puzzling plot for a director that famously loves to trick and fool his audience through his narratives.
It is the first isolated story Shyamalan has directed since completing the Unbreakable trilogy with his previous two features, Glass (2019) and Split (2017), which both existed in the same cinematic universe as his 2000 hit, Unbreakable. Shyamalan has also worked on the past two seasons of Apple TV Plus’ Servant, and his new film is the first of his to be shot on 35mm film since 2010’s The Last Airbender.
We know little else about the film to date, but we can bank on a staple Shyamalan plot twist in the final act. You will have to head to the big screen this summer to see how it pans out, as it hits cinemas five months later than originally planned.
Old will be released on the 23 July.
Words by Ben Faulkner.
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