The Old movie trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's latest thriller is here. Shyamalan wrote, produced, and directed Old, based loosely on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters. Shyamalan has stayed mum on the plot of his film, but the plot of Sandcastle can give some insight into what's in store for Shyamalan's latest. The graphic novel follows a group of beachgoers on vacation who are beset by rapid aging and an increasingly frightening set of circumstances once they realize there is no way to get off the beach.
Old stars quite the expansive ensemble, with Gael García Bernal, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie, Aaron Pierre, Alex Wolff, Vicky Krieps, and Abbey Lee all set to star. While most of Shyamalan's work post-Signs has been hit or miss, the director has experienced a resurgence of sorts since his backdoor sequel Split followed up on Unbreakable and AppleTV+'s Servant premiered to positive reception in 2020. Whether or not Shyamalan can keep up this winning streak remains to be seen, but the trailer for Old at least makes a case that it's possible.
The first teaser for Old from Universal shows what was inferred about the film from the plot of the graphic novel. We see the cast at the beach before they quickly age into older versions of themselves and, in Scanlen’s character’s case, rapidly go through a pregnancy that elicits more fear than it does excitement. The group of strangers must grapple with their rapid aging as they try to figure out what exactly is wrong with their vacation spot. Check out the trailer below:
Shyamalan is known for his out-there twists, so there’s no way he’s given away what’s to come in the creepy thriller in this short 30 second spot. We get the lush visuals and the basis of the film’s presence, but there are sure to be plenty of twists ahead for all the beachgoers. At one point, one of them says that they have to figure out what’s going on with the beach, hinting at a deeper mythology at the center of the film that will likely be explored.
Most interestingly, it seems as if the expansive cast list is so large because of the rapid aging. Wolff is confirmed to be playing an older version of the six-year-old child at the beginning of the clip while Krieps, who plays his mother, is also seen rapidly aging in a brief embrace with her son. Scanlen, too, seems to be playing the older version of a child shown early in the teaser. We also get a hint as to what happens at the end of the aging process and it’s not pretty. One man’s body seems to be going rapidly through the decomposition process during the only scene set at night in the clip. While the clip is brief, Shyamalan likely has more up his sleeve when Old hits theaters this summer.
Source: Universal Pictures