In any other year, a trailer for a film where Jeffrey Dean Morgan hunts people illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States would already have the potential to be pretty shocking and intense. There’s something about 2016, though, that makes this idea of a radicalized would-be patriot going off the rails and grabbing a rifle so he can dispense his own brand of murderous “justice” seem extra scary. We’re not sure why that is (something about tiny hands and the color orange?), but that’s the basic setup for Desierto, an upcoming horror thriller directed by Jonás Cuarón, the son of Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón (who is also a producer on this film). Thankfully, Desierto features Gael García Bernal on the side of the border-crossers, and he’s far too pretty to get executed by some racist nut, so we imagine there will come a point in the film where he’s able to turn the tables on his attacker.
The younger Cuarón also wrote the film, which was presented at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month, where it won the International Federation Of Film Critics’ prize. Desierto will be in theaters on October 14.