If you're feeling like there's an overload of book to movie adaptations circulating Hollywood right now, you wouldn't exactly be wrong. We've seen our September men's cover star, Nabhaan Rizwan, shine in the Netflix romance The Last Letter From Your Lover; and watched along as Michelle Pfeiffer dazzled in The French Exit. With new releases constantly swirling, there's been one in particular that we've been eagerly awaiting; and finally, the trailer for Nightmare Alley has arrived and boy, is the cast stellar.

The psychological thriller has been adapted by film director Guillermo del Toro based on William Lindsay Gresham's 1946 novel. The crime noir tale follows an ambitious carny, Stan Carlisle, known for being an excellent manipulator; who crosses paths with Dr. Lilith Ritter, a psychiatrist who is even more dangerous than he is.

As we already teased, the film is certainly playing no games with its casting. Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett take the lead, which would be enough to keep us interested – but throw in Willem Dafoe and Rooney Mara amongst a string of other notable faces and we can hardly look away.

 

What is Nightmare Alley about?

Nightmare Alley follows main character Stanton “Stan” Carlisle (Cooper), who teams up with dangerous psychiatrist Dr. Lillith Ritter (Blanchett); combining their skills of manipulation to create a truly destructive and unholy alliance. From the first trailer alone, we can see that the film has an extremely interesting art deco style; paired with the usual Toro hallmarks of fire and blood. Although it doesn't give much away, the repetitive line "is he man or is he beast" as Cooper's character becomes increasingly more frantic might suggest that there's more to Stan Carlisle than meets the eye.

 

Who stars in Nightmare Alley?

Aside from Cooper and Blanchett, we'll see appearances from Dafoe, Mara, Australian icon Toni Collette, Richard Jenkins and Ron Perlman – just to name a few. When you have a director like Toro and a story of such grandeur, there's no question that the obvious choice is to go big, or not do it at all!

 

When will the film be released and is there a trailer?

The film has been pipped for a December 17, 2021 release date; though there's no word as yet on whether this date will translate to Australian audiences. In the meantime, you can watch the first official trailer below.

See the second full length trailer of Nightmare Alley for yourself, below.

 

 

Image: Instagram