Over the last decade or so the horror genre has seen its fair share of witch-centric stories. Now Yellow Veil Pictures and writer/director Gaspar Noé have thrown their hat in the ring with their upcoming film Lux Æterna. The film is set to open next month and the first trailer for this uniquely atmospheric terror has just been released.
Not many trailers start off with a seizure warning, but this trailer is lined with a barrage of flashing lights. If anything, this hints at a different kind of horror film that genre fans have not seen before. The trailer itself is simply a bizarre series of disorienting flashing lights mixed together with some spellbinding imagery and our group of characters trying to make a film. The description of the film gives us a little more insight into the plot saying, “Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg are on a film set telling stories about witches. Technical problems and psychotic outbreaks gradually plunge the shoot into chaos.”
Making a movie is hard enough, but it is even harder when the crew gets driven mad. From the looks of it, this is a film that will tap into the stresses of production and the various abuses that happen far too often on a set like this. At the same time, it also explores how someone can be driven mad by their art. In between the flashy light show imagery, there are a few teases of some tense exchanges between characters, and as the trailer goes further into the film’s madness, it is hard not to be at least intrigued by the puzzlingly atmospheric setup.
However, despite this interesting trailer, the main reason to get excited about this film is Noé being behind the camera. This director has given us nothing but insane horror films in the past. Enter the Void, Irreversible, Vortex, and Climax have done their part to psychologically mess up their audiences. Climax in particular was extremely well received in the horror community, and it had such a haunting unorthodox style. If you can stomach the bright lights of this trailer, Lux Æterna looks to be more of the uniquely crazy same.
Lux Æterna had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival all the way back in 2019, but the film’s wide release was affected by COVID. The film stars Gainsbourg, Dalle, Abbey Lee (The Neon Demon), Karl Glusman (Love), Claude-Emmanuelle Gajan-Maull (Climax), and Félix Maritaud (Sauvage / Wild, Knife + Heart). The film is set for release in New York on May 6 and in LA on May 13 before getting a wider release soon after.
You can watch the full trailer for Lux Æterna below.