Looking at the first trailer for High Life, the upcoming space thriller from A24 and director Claire Denis, it’s understandable if viewers have no idea what to suspect. There’s some frantic cutting and screaming and bellowing and blood that makes it look like a space-madness movie along the lines of Event Horizon. There are quiet images of Twilight star Robert Pattinson playing with a baby, which feel more like they belong to a quiet, internal science fiction story like Moon. There are moments of EVA dread that feel like outtakes from Gravity. And there are snippets of highfalutin, poetic, opaque voiceover that put the whole thing into a more Annihilation-esque light.
It’s a lot for one trailer. And yet in terms of telling viewers what...