It's nearly five years since we heard a peep from Juan Antonio Bayona, the Spanish helmer who made such a splash with his Guillermo del Toro-produced debut "The Orphanage," one of the most commandingly made and effective horror films of the last couple decades. Big things were expected of Bayona subsequently, but if the Hollywood offers came, he turned them down, instead sticking with Spanish money, albeit with international stars, in the shape of Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, for "The Impossible."
Shot back in 2010, word's been pretty quiet on the film, which features the stars as a family caught up in the terrible Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, which killed as many as 300,000 people at the time. Until yesterday, that is; in a slightly unfortunate piece of timing, Warner Bros. Spain saw fit to release a teaser trailer for the film on the seventh anniversary of the catastrophe.
It's all in Spanish, so we're still a little in the dark as to some of the details, but the visuals are pretty stunning, as we see Watts tossed around like an underwater ragdoll, before breaking out in an ultra slow-motion shot. Things then close out with some impressive VFX tsunami sequences suggesting that this isn't going to skimp on the devastation.
Things certainly look better than Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter," which used the same jumping off point, although it's early days yet. The trailer reveals it's set for a Spanish release on October 11th, but there's no word on when Summit, who have the U.S. rights, are planning on bringing it here. Could we see a festival debut at Toronto, or even Cannes, where "The Orphanage" bowed? Watch below, thanks to Twitch.