Eerie images float through the trailer Peter Strickland‘s latest film, unbound from sense or reality: a crimson dress levitating in the air, a washing machine convulsing itself to oblivion, a hypnotic spiral drawing you in with its swirl. Welcome to the department store of your most hallucinatory nightmares.
The new feature-length effort from England’s rising genre master Strickland takes place at a handsomely appointed shopping center, where the vaguely Eastern European clerk has an odd way about her. Between her vaguely hostile demeanor, her baroque manner of speech (“I would like you to announce the numbers to your telephone,” she says), and her faintly orgasmic sigh of satisfaction upon making a sale, something’s not right.
It’s here that Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) comes to search for the perfect outfit, as she gets back out on the discouraging, demoralizing dating circuit. A red dress with a magnetic pull catches her eye, but the cost it exacts will be much higher than the listed price.
The newly released trailer shows little of the film’s second half, in which a sloppy lads’ weekend takes a turn for the dire as they, too, get caught in the dress’ dormant evil. Either way, curious parties can get a full sampling of the mesmerizing synthesizer score pulsating throughout the film as well as the clip below.
With an aesthetic influenced equally by early ’60s fashion catalogues, vintage giallo cinema, and the Twilight Zone, Strickland’s created an ineffably creepy gem of abstract horror. To further sate audience appetites, he’s unveiled a poster to go along with the trailer, supporting the overall haunting, haunted vibe.
In Fabric comes to cinemas in the UK on 28 June. An American release date has yet to be set.
Published 29 May 2019
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