It’s been several months now since we were first given a look at the world of Gore Verbinksi’s new horror-thriller A Cure For Wellness. The film’s visual ambition is promising, even if the plot’s description—young man is sent to remote health spa in the Swiss Alps to find a missing man, only to be drawn into an increasingly weird and unsettling world—does make it sound more than a little like Scorsese’s Shutter Island. (A feeling that’s only reinforced by watching star Dane DeHaan running around in the trailer wearing a white robe like he’s an escaped mental patient.) But the Super Bowl commercial for the film, while not offering anything new in the way of story details, does ratchet up the intensity, making it look less like a slow-burn thriller and more like “things go insane very quickly.” The voiceover warns of the side affects from the titular cure, which begin with sneezing, dry eyes, and dizziness, but quickly spiral into some rather concerning possibilities, like stroke, self-mutilation, and insanity. Too bad normal medicine commercials already warn of “death” as a possible side effect, because the accompanying visuals on this one make it much more overtly stressful than the smiling people in real-life ads.
A Cure For Wellness will be diagnosed by the moviegoing public on February 17.