Sharlto Copley, antagonist of the recent “Elysium” and South Africa’s finest sayer of the word “fuck,” is a man who most likely first came to your attention soaked in a variety of mysterious bodily gunk and viscera, playing the transmogrifying Wikus in Neill Blomkamp‘s clever sci-fi flick “District 9.” Well, here he is again, covered in blood and unsure of who he is: but at least this time the blood is human (we think?).
Copley is the lead in the forthcoming horror “Open Grave,” and he’s got some stuff to work out in this first trailer. Heading an international cast that also includes Thomas Kretschmann (“King Kong”, “Downfall”), Copley plays John, who wakes up in a pit surrounded by the bodies of violently murdered strangers with no idea how he or any of the corpses got there. The people in the nearby house are all similarly amnesiac, and that’s about as much as the trailer tells us … but it does also include a helping of deeply creepy imagery, both in the “innocently creepy” and in the “definitely intentionally creepy” categories.
Check out the trailer below and see what you think. This might be deeply silly or it might be enjoyably grim and clever. Fingers crossed for the latter. “Open Grave” arrives on iTunes and VOD on Christmas Eve and in select theaters beginning on January 3, 2014.