Today before my (second) viewing Star Wars: The Last Jedi I had the pleasant surprise of the first full trailer for Annihilation, the first novel in the “Area X” or “Southern Reach” cycle from Jeff VanderMeer.  It was a cool experiment in literature a couple of years ago: each book in the trilogy was released about six months apart.  It’s an odd story, one of the weirdest I’ve read in a long time.  Which is why it’s cool that some of that weird has definitely translated into the movie adaptation.  And this trailer says just enough about the story of a woman seeking answers concerning the strange death of her husband.

Part of the odd nature of the story concerns a strong sense of detachment felt while reading the novel.  Throughout the story, you know just barely enough about what’s going on.  And even the story moves at a decent clip (with neither chapter even clocking in as that long of a book), there’s a weird density of the story that enforces the detachment.  The leads in the movie seem very well cast.  Very well cast.