The car­ni­val comes to town in the first trail­er for Night­mare Alley

Lov­ing­ly ren­dered peri­od detail, check. A deft blend­ing of this his­to­ry with strokes of the old-fash­ioned occult, check. An under­cur­rent of seething for­bid­den desire that lends a height­ened sense of stakes to the sto­ry at hand, check. This can mean only one thing – a new film by Guiller­mo del Toro is close at hand.

Last night saw the first trail­er for the genre favorite’s lat­est film Night­mare Alley appear online, and it looks like the direc­tor hasn’t strayed too far from his for­mal trade­marks. The adap­ta­tion of William Lind­say Gresham’s 1946 nov­el (not a remake of the film with Tyrone Pow­er and Joan Blondell made one year after­ward) may not ful­ly break with real­ism and soar into fan­ta­sy, but there’s no way anyone’s mis­tak­ing the del Toro touch at work here.

A car­ni­val in the ear­ly 20^th cen­tu­ry rolls into town, bring­ing trou­ble and intrigue with it; slick­ster Stan Carlisle (Bradley Coop­er) manip­u­lates the looky-loos with sub­tle acts of per­sua­sion, but he may have met his match in the psy­chi­a­trist Dr. Lil­lith Rit­ter (Cate Blanchett). He can get any­one – men­tal­ist Zeena (Toni Col­lette), elec­tric girl Mol­ly (Rooney Mara), auto tycoon Ezra (Richard Jenk­ins) – to do his bid­ding, but he’s unpre­pared when an equal­ly cun­ning fiend tries to do the same to him.

The specifics of Stan’s many hoax­es and even­tu­al fall from grace are best left unsaid, but between the fires burst­ing out all over and the men­ac­ing scor­ing, there’s an air of doom por­tend­ing dark things to come. All the same, nice to see Coop­er in a lead­ing role for the first time in three years.

One per­ti­nent bit of knowl­edge for those unschooled in the car­ni­val arts: a main­stay of the gnarly side shows trav­el­ing with the rest of the carnies, the ​“geek” was a per­former who would shock and amaze crowds by bit­ing the heads off of live chick­ens, then drink­ing their blood. As the trail­er echoes, ​“man or beast?” is the core ques­tion of these des­per­ate ghouls, a judge­ment Stan will soon face as well.

Night­mare Alley comes to cin­e­mas in the US on 17 Decem­ber. A release date for the UK has yet to be set.