In a collaboration that seems designed specifically to spark the imaginations of horror geeks and Film Twitter members everywhere, we finally have our first footage of director Alex Garland’s new “horror drama” for A24, starring none other than new Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley. The film is simply titled Men, and it looks about as creepy as our gender is so often capable of being.
Little is known about the more detailed plot of Men, save for the following sentence: “A young woman goes on a solo vacation in the English countryside after the death of her ex-husband.” Looking at the trailer, it’s clear this woman, played by Buckley, begins to be plagued by visions of a man who is following or stalking her. It seems safe to say that this figure is either her ex-husband, or someone related to the man.
What we have, then, is a premise that evokes the likes of It Follows, directed by the man who brought us Ex Machina and Annihilation, and starring the lead of Netflix’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. As if that’s somehow not promising enough, the film’s score will also be from Annihilation’s composers, Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury. The trailer, meanwhile, looks very A24-y indeed, especially in its use of a repeated aural motif that slowly builds up the tension throughout.
It’s safe to say that Men immediately vaults into place as one of our most anticipated films of 2022, and we won’t even have to wait that long—Men is scheduled to hit theaters on May 20. Check out the first creepy trailer below.