Remember when Jake Gyllenhaal got scary skinny?  Now you can get a sense of why he did it because the very first viral video for Dan Gilroy’s feature directorial debut, Nightcrawler, is out and Gyllenhaal’s gaunt appearance in the piece does make his character’s desperation to land a job even more heart wrenching and quite unnerving, too.  Gyllenhaal leads the film as an ambitious guy trying to land a good job, but it’s not really working out for him so instead, he winds up getting into the business of “nightcrawling,” the practice of using video cameras and police scanners to cover crimes and then sell the footage to local news stations.

The video is less than a minute long, but it sure does make an impression.  For those who’ve been on the job-hunt before, it’s easy to connect to Gyllenhaal’s passion and his very well rehearsed pitch, making the dark turn towards the end of the piece especially disconcerting.  Nightcrawler is due in theaters on October 17th and also stars Bill Paxton, Rene Russo and Riz Ahmed.  Hit the jump to check out the Nightcrawler trailer for yourself.

Here’s the film’s official synopsis via Open Road Films:

NIGHTCRAWLER is a pulse-pounding thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles.  Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism.  Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling -- where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars and cents.  Aided by Rene Russo as Nina, a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news, Lou thrives.  In the breakneck, ceaseless search for footage, he becomes the star of his own story.

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Image via Open Road Films