Dane DeHaan Attends a Terrifying Therapy Center in First Trailer for Gore Verbinski's 'A Cure for Wellness'

By Nick Schager, Yahoo Movies

Gore Verbinski took significant creative risks with his reimagined The Lone Ranger, few of which seemed to resonate with moviegoers, who largely stayed away. That film’s disappointing commercial performance, however, doesn’t seem to have deterred the director from continuing to go out on an artistic limb with his latest, A Cure for Wellness — which, from the looks of its first trailer (watch it above), will be an out-there otherworldly thriller.

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There’s no lucid story conveyed by the promo, but what it lacks in narrative details, it makes up for in haunting imagery, all of it set to a creepy, laconic cover of The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.” There’s Dane DeHaan floating underwater (and hooked up to a breathing apparatus) in a giant old-school vat full of eels. There are mountainous landscapes reflected back at themselves on the side of speeding trains. There are groups of people using giant balls in synchronized water aerobics classes (in indoor pools in gothic mansions). And there are white-gowned dancers twirling about a checkerboard marble ballroom, castles on fire, a young girl suspended like a ghost in mid-water, and a room full of nearly nude men stored in water-tank prisons. Does any of it make sense? No! Does it all look striking and portend a unique The Cell-by-way-of-12 Monkeys supernatural mystery? Perhaps!

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Future trailers may provide some sort of explanation for this madness, which will star DeHaan as, apparently, a patient at this spa-like therapeutic facility, and the eventual friend of a young girl. For now, however, simply revel in the inexplicable beauty of A Cure for Wellness’ tease. The film arrives in theaters on Feb. 17, 2017.

Gore Verbinski’s ‘The Lone Ranger’: Watch a trailer: