Watch Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway Plot Murder in Serenity Trailer

“Sometimes we do bad things for good reasons,” declares Matthew McConaughey’s character in the new trailer for the mysterious thriller Serenity.

McConaughey plays the eccentric captain of a fishing boat whose ex-wife, played by Anne Hathaway, seeks help in an attempt to escape her abusive spouse. The gripping trailer promises an intense murder plot while hinting at something peculiar about the people in the small island town.

Locke director Steven Knight helms the film, which also stars Diane Lane, Djimon Hounsou, Jason Clarke and Jeremy Strong.

Serenity opens in theaters Oct. 19. Watch the trailer below and see the full synopsis further down.

From the creative mind of Oscar nominee Steven Knight comes a daringly original, sexy, stylized thriller. Baker Dill (Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey) is a fishing boat captain leading tours off a tranquil, tropical enclave called Plymouth Island. His quiet life is shattered, however, when his ex-wife Karen (Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway) tracks him down with a desperate plea for help. She begs Dill to save her—and their young son—from her new, violent husband (Jason Clarke) by taking him out to sea on a fishing excursion, only to throw him to the sharks and leave him for dead. Karen’s appearance thrusts Dill back into a life he’d tried to forget, and as he struggles between right and wrong, his world is plunged into a new reality that may not be all that it seems.