A first-look clip from the upcoming Netflix film Spiderhead is here, and it teases a sexually-charged cerebral film that seems to center on scientific experiments meddling with a person’s feelings of attraction for another.
The movie stars Chis Hemsworth, a brilliant visionary who runs a state-of-the-art penitentiary by experimenting on his subjects with mind-altering drugs. It looks to be a very different role than the actor’s usual brute warrior persona, as seen in Thor and other films.
Also starring in the movie are Top Gun: Maverick actor Miles Teller and Lovecraft Country star Jurnee Smollett, two inmates who are trying to grapple with their past while being incarcerated, and both end up forming a connection with each other.
The film is helmed by Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, who also gave us a previous effort in the cerebral sci-fi genre with 2010’s Tron: Legacy. The movie is based on a short story penned by George Saunders that appeared in The New Yorker, “Escape From Spiderhead.”
The plot of the film centers on one of the prisoners beginning to question the purpose of the emotion-manipulating experiments he’s testing for the pharmaceutical genius who runs the prison.
Based on the clip by itself, it’s a bit difficult to ascertain the actual tone the movie will take. At this point, it could go in any number of directions, including comedic, dramatic, or full-blown mind-bending. But based on the Twitter account for Netflix, it seems the film will very much lean into the latter genre more than anything.
“SPIDERHEAD is BLACK MIRROR meets SHUTTER ISLAND,” the streaming service proclaimed on a social media post.
You won’t need to wait too long to see Spiderhead as it drops on Netflix next week, on June 17.
