You may have forgotten, but three years ago, Lars von Trier‘s production company Zentropa announced that a handful of early works by the director were getting digitally restored. Not much has been heard about the project since, but it looks like starting next year, we’re going to start seeing the results.
READ MORE: Lars von Trier Teases Return To Cannes In 2018 With ‘The House That Jack Built’
Zentropa has quietly released a five-minute preview from the upcoming restoration of “The Kingdom.” Von Trier’s brilliant comedy/horror series delivered two seasons in 1995 and 1997, and riffed on medical drama procedurals, balancing soap opera plotlines and creepy paranormal elements, with each episode capped off by von Trier himself appearing in an Alfred Hitchcock style coda. Here are the synopses for both seasons, but really, it’s a show that’s kind of indescribable:
The Kingdom is a bastion of science. A rash of uncanny occurrences begins to weaken the staff’s faith in science – a phantom ambulance pulls in every night, but disappears and a pregnant doctor’s fetus is developing faster than natural.
At the Kingdom everything is as it was – and nothing is. Neurosurgeon Stig Helmer has returned from Haiti. Little Brother, is growing at amazing pace. Mrs. Drusse is mortally wounded by an ambulance, and sets off on her journey into the unknown.
“The Kingdom” will be landing in 2018, though there’s no exact release date yet. But between this, and von Trier’s upcoming serial killer flick “The House That Jack Built,” it’s going to be heckuva year for fans for the director.