Dane DeHaan Attends a Terrifying Therapy Center in Mysterious First Trailer for Gore Verbinski’s ‘A Cure for Wellness’
Gore Verbinski took significant creative risks with his reimagined The Lone Ranger, few of which seemed to resonate with audiences, 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 – which, from the looks of its first trailer, will be a distinctly out-there otherworldly thriller.
There’s absolutely no lucid story conveyed by the above promo for A Cure for Wellness, but what it lacks in narrative details, it makes up for in haunting imagery, all of which is 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 almost-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!
Future trailers are apt to 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, moviegoers can simply revel in the inexplicable beauty of A Cure for Wellness’ above tease. The film arrives in theaters on February 17, 2017.
