Tony Todd is continuing his horror genre reign with the first Devilreaux trailer. The upcoming movie, written and directed by Thomas J. Churchill, centers on a young female police officer who begins investigating the eponymous ghost story after a group of young adults awaken the vengeful spirit from the past who takes his anger out on his victims with a sharp, bloody shovel. Alongside Todd, the cast for Devilreaux includes The Walking Dead alum Vincent M. Ward, Doom Patrol's Jon Briddell, Meghan Carrasquillo, and Jackie Quinones.
Ahead of the film's June release, Screen Rant is excited to exclusively debut the first Devilreaux trailer.
The trailer, as seen above, offers the first look at the upcoming horror movie. Devilreaux centers on a group of young adults who inadvertently awaken the spirit of a vengeful spirit from the 1800s that begins picking them off one by one. The video also offers a tease of the spirit's tragic backstory and how it has haunted the region throughout the years.
How Devilreaux Subverts A Tony Todd Horror Tradition
After having gotten his start in more dramatic fare in the late '80s with the likes of Oliver Stone's Platoon and the Morgan Freeman-led Lean on Me, Tony Todd kicked off the '90s by making his way into the horror genre, where he would become a staple in the decades after thanks to the adaptation of Clive Barker's Candyman. Portraying the 19th-century African-American man murdered for his interracial love affair with the daughter of a wealthy landowner, Todd sits in the same company as Freddy Krueger's Robert Englund and Jason Voorhees' Kane Hodder as a horror icon.
Unlike his iconic role in Candyman, however, Todd's role in Devilreaux looks to be a subversion of expectations from his typical genre characters. Ward looks to be playing the eponymous resurrected spirit rather than that of the horror icon, which doesn't necessarily mean they aren't the same character, but may indicate Todd is being set up as a red herring for the audience as to who is actually the murderous Devilreaux passed down throughout the years.
The other possibility, however, is that the filmmakers behind Devilreaux are taking a page out of the Candyman legacy sequel's book, with various people embodying the eponymous title through the generations rather than just one figure. However, given Ward's larger stature in comparison to that of Todd, it could also be explained that the witch who resurrected the eponymous spirit transformed him into more of a monstrous being than his original nature. Only time will tell when Devilreaux hits theaters, digital platforms, and VOD on June 9.