Annihilation just got its first official trailer.
The good news? It’s about as unsettling as you might expect.
Annihilation stars Natalie Portman as The Biologist – a scientist investigating a mysterious location known only as ‘Area X’. Along with the rest of her team, they’ve been tasked with venturing into this mysterious place and finding out what it’s all about.
But it’s no simple feat. The laws of the natural world don’t apply inside Area X, and it’s not long before they start to encounter strange creatures within its borders. But for The Biologist, it’s no mere expedition – she has a rather more personal reason or being there.
As we find out in the trailer, The Biologist’s husband (played by Oscar Isaac) has already been to Area X… and it left him ravaged and on life support.
Clearly, The Biologist wants to save him.
And if she stands any chance of that, she’s going to have to follow in his footsteps.
Based on a novel by Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation promises to be something a bit different… and with Ex_Machina director Alex Garland at the helm, it could be another massive sci-fi hit.
The trailer itself is rather stunning, conjuring up a more beautiful (but equally sinister) version of Stranger Things’s Upside Down. How that plays out remains to be seen… but some critics are already noting that there are big differences between Annihilation and its source novel.
“While this trailer is full of stunning imagery and moments both gorgeous and terrifying, it all looks a bit louder and a bit more generic than VanderMeer’s novel, which relegated much of the conflict to the Biologist’s internal monologue and leaned on dread and foreboding rather than vicious creatures,” said /Film writer Jacob Hall.
Whether or not it manages to hit the same notes remains to be seen.
Either way, it’s a very promising start.
Annihilation stars Natalie Portman, Oscar Isaac, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, and Benedict Wong.
Alex Garland both wrote and directed the movie.
Annihilation heads to cinemas on 23 February 2018.
