Sometimes anticipation pays off. Way back in January, Lucile Hadzihalilovic‘s "Evolution" landed on our 20 Most Anticipated Foreign Films Of 2015 list, and when Nikola Grozdanovic saw it nine months later at TIFF, he was knocked over. "Hadzihalilovic creates a nightmarish lullaby that nestles itself into the unsuspecting viewer like some alien organism, engendered to haunt one’s mind with a phantasmagorical presence," he said about the film in his review. And now, you can experience the sensation the film conjures with the first international trailer.
Starring Max Brebant, Roxane Duran, and Julie-Marie Parmentier, the film mixes body horror and fantasy in a story about the relationship between a young boy and his mother, both of whom live in a mysterious remote community. Here’s the synopsis:
Ten-year old Nicolas (Max Brebant) lives an austere and isolated life with his mother in a remote seaside community populated by women and other little boys about his age, but seemingly devoid of adult males. In a hospital overlooking the tempestuous ocean, the boys are all subjected to regular medical treatments — or, perhaps, some mysterious experiment.
Only Nicolas seems to question what’s happening to him and his friends. He finds an unexpected ally in a young nurse, Stella, whose kindness is a break from the severity that all the other women seem to reserve for their young charges. Increasingly suspicious that his mother and the nurses are lying to him and that something sinister is going on, he follows the women at night, determined to find out what they are up to. What he discovers on the beach signals the beginning of a nightmare from which he’s helpless to escape. Alchemy will release "Evolution" in U.S. cinemas next year. Watch below.
