The New, Very NSFW Teaser for The Void is John Carpenter to the Core

When the spectre of ‘80s John Carpenter looms over a film, the results are often deliriously good. Such was the case with It Follows, which repurposed the director’s synth obsession and Halloween’s suburban stalker premise in startling ways, and Stranger Things, which mixed Carpenter with early Spielberg to create a nostalgic genre cocktail that still managed to taste fresh. Now, The Void, which has been drawing Carpenter comparisons left and right since it premiered at Fantastic Fest last year, looks to be another in the line of successful homages.

This time, however, the influence seems to be less the slow-burn tension of Michael Myers’ hunting spree than the vomitorious, practical-effects-driven splatter fest that is The Thing. The new, very NSFW teaser for The Void (via Empire) suggests as much. Filled with images of gurneys, blades, fire and carnivorous/parasitic creatures doing ghastly things to people’s faces, the film’s iconography indeed seems pulled straight from the Antarctic compound in which Kurt Russell’s R.J. MacReady and co. fought for their lives back in 1982. Directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski—whose combined experience doing design and effects work for such baroque genre fare like Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak and Hannibal certainly paid off here—seem to have done a bang-up job of constructing the gore (it looks unnervingly tactile) and conjuring atmosphere. In the trailer alone, we experience how an artful mix of light and shadow, close-ups and long shots can generate fear and disgust in a variety of ways.

At your own risk, check out the full teaser above, and catch the film in theaters on April 7.