The trailer for A24’s ‘Men’ is all about the horror of gaslighting

In case you weren’t sure if the somewhat bold title of Alex Garland’s new horror film Men indicated we’d be getting a movie saying something about, well, guys being dudes, the first official trailer has put that to bed. From the looks of this early glimpse into the upcoming horror from A24 and the acclaimed director behind Ex Machina and Annihilation, Men might just as well be called Gaslight: The Movie.

The film sees Jesse Buckley, who is up for an Oscar this year for her performance in The Lost Daughter, arriving at a mysterious manor of sorts before things get weird. It looks to be spawned by eating some “forbidden fruit,” an Adam and Eve allusion that comes up throughout via a motif of falling apples. Appropriately, Buckley is surrounded by weird men the entire time, and based on the trailer, it’s possible she is the only woman throughout the entire film.

Buckley’s co-star Rory Kinnear comes up throughout the trailer playing different characters: a creepy host, a priest, menacing guys at a bar (maybe the purpose is to say that there is something universally something sinister in all men?). As things escalate, Kinnear’s personas lob bizarre, emotionally manipulative questions at Buckley.

After Buckley tells the priest-version of Kinnear that her husband had fallen off a balcony once, he says, “You must wonder why you drove him to it.” When Buckley is taken aback, he asks, “Might it be true that if you’d given him the chance to apologize, he’d still be alive?”

Later, Buckley fearfully explains how she saw a man following her, saying, “I saw him twice.” Kinnear responds: “Twice? Well, I don’t know if he’d saw you once.” Men comes out in theaters May 20.