#Possessor Trailer Sets the Trap for Brandon Cronenberg’s Brain-Melting Sci-Fi Thriller

“#Possessor Trailer Sets the Trap for Brandon Cronenberg’s Brain-Melting Sci-Fi Thriller”

We have the first trailer for Possessor. Neon has released our first look at the latest from director Brandon Cronenberg. While the filmmaker may well be compared to his father, the great David Cronenberg (The Fly, Videodrome), Brandon has been making a name for himself. Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year to rave reviews, this is poised to make a big splash. But as this red-band trailer reveals, the gruesome horror flick is not pulling any punches working with its unique premise.

The trailer starts out with an assassin at the beginning of a strange yet important mission. We aren’t provided with too much direct information. Instead, we are handed a lot of intriguing imagery with little context. The visuals get progressively NSFW, with lots of blood, up-close brutality and intimacy. It looks to be unflinchingly violent. At the same time, this is very much a teaser and, based on that alone, it is a little tough to get a grip on what is going on, in terms of the overall story.

This serves as Brandon Cronenberg’s follow-up to 2012’s Antiviral. Possessor centers on an elite, corporate assassin named Tasya Vos. Using brain-implant technology, shes takes control of other people’s bodies to take out high-profile targets. As she sinks deeper into her latest assignment, Vos becomes trapped inside a mind that threatens to obliterate her. Cronenberg had this to say about how he came up with the story.

“It was a time when things were changing in my life very quickly and I was waking up feeling this sense of absence of familiarity, like I had to scramble to form some kind of identity that made sense in that context. I don’t think that’s an uncommon thing to varying degrees. I think a lot of people have those moments where either they feel like they need to play a character to present themselves or something shifts in their lives. So, on a personal and philosophical level, I thought that idea was interesting. I wanted to explore that in a sci-fi way.”

A poster was also released that features a truly unsettling image of our lead character in what appears to be an ill-fitting mask made of skin. It comes with the tagline, “No body is safe.” The cast includes Andrea Riseborough, Christopher Abbott, Tuppence Middleton, Sean Bean and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Niv Fichman, FraserFaser Ash, Kevin Kirkst and Andy Starke are on board as producers.

For Neon, they are coming off of a big year. The distributor took home its first-ever Best Picture prize at the Oscars, with Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite winning the top prize at Hollywood’s big night. Critics, so far, have been quite kind to the movie, as it holds a 93 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A release date has not yet been revealed, but Possessor is set to arrive soon from Neon. Be sure to check out the new trailer for yourself.