Being a young person in the city is hard enough without being haunted by a cabaret singer from the 1960s, but that’s exactly what Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit) appears to be dealing with in the first trailer for Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho. The film is set to premiere in theaters in October, but the trailer seems like a nice taste of Wright’s clever style through a horror lens.
Last Night in Soho follows McKenzie as Eloise, a young fashion fan who seemingly has the ability to dream herself into the past. The problem is she isn’t herself when she visits London’s West End in the 1960s; she’s Anya Taylor-Joy’s Sandy, a singer who, if the trailer is anything to go by, probably shouldn’t be dating whoever Matt Smith is playing (“Jack,” according to IMDb). Things take a turn toward the ghostly from there as the past bleeds into the present. It turns out dreaming you’re Taylor-Joy isn’t as chill as I assumed!
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The film’s distributor, Focus Features, describes Last Night in Soho as a “psychological thriller,” which is a notable change of pace from Wright’s usual preference for action and comedy. Wright’s toyed with horror before in Shaun of the Dead, but the Soho trailer, with its neon reds and blues and focus on knives and / or stabbing is also harkening back to popular Italian “giallo” horror films — specifically the work of director Dario Argento, even more specifically, his 1977 film Suspiria.
The 2018 remake of Suspiria leaned more into the gruesome body horror of “what if witches ran a dance school?” (In short, bodies can twist in horrifying ways.) But where that film didn’t really pick up Argento’s love of dramatic lighting and synths, Wright seems primed to at least carry forward some of that mantle with Last Night in Soho.
Last Night in Soho will hit theaters in October, with a more specific release date to come.
