Edgar Wright takes a spooky turn in the trailer for Last Night In Soho
Film Features Last Night in Soho
Edgar Wright’s long-awaited follow-up to Baby Driver is even more long-awaited thanks to the pandemic year, which delayed the release of several films, including Last Night In Soho. Focus Features has released the first teaser trailer for Wright’s upcoming thriller, which looks like it has more in common with the horror flicks of Guillermo Del Toro than Wright’s genre-bending comedies—at least on a visual level, since the teaser is entirely wordless:
Starring Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit) and Anya Taylor-Joy (whose cover of Petula Clark’s “Downtown” accompanies the trailer), Last Night In Soho follows a young woman and aspiring fashion designer (McKenzie) who moves to London, where she’s somehow able to go back in time to the 1960s and connect with her idol—a glamorous aspiring songstress (Taylor-Joy). Wright’s film, which hits theaters on October 22, definitely looks like a cool throwback to the psychological thrillers of the ’60s and ’70s, including the works of Brian De Palma and (sorry sorry sorry) Roman Polanski. The last shot in the trailer—a freeze frame that shatters like glass—really hammers that point home.
Co-written by Wright with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917), Last Night In Soho also stars Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, the late Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao, and Synnøve Karlsen.
104 Comments
So basically looks to be a straight-edged Nightmare on Elm Street mixed with a body possession movie.
Does it though? Nightmare on Elm Street has pretty much no similarity beyond one or two visuals and this being somehow related to sleep. Plus the time travel element is different. I feel like this comparison isn’t actually accurate.
Some kind of dream world, given the trailer seems to show the “time travel” happening at night with the light switch noise and it first showing the change happening between going to bed and waking up, where a monster is stalking someone to try and kill them?No similarity at all…
Right, so a couple surface similarities, mostly in terms of visuals, but nowhere near enough to say ‘So basically this looks to be…’
So even though it looks to follow the same conceit of someone being in danger in their dream world and the effects bleeding into reality in some way that’s still not enough for a basic comparison…Also you assume the time travel is actual time travel and not some nightmare world given it only takes place when she’s asleep as far as the trailer repeatedly shows.Who’s your dealer?
Hey, you leave my dealer out of this, he’s got enough worries trying to get custody of his kids.I’m not insulting you, just saying I disagree on your take of a 2.5 minute trailer for a movie. Frankly neither of our opinions is based on a lot at this point.
But yeah, it doesn’t really appear to be a dream world and there’s no evidence of a killer persona of some sort stalking her. All I’m saying is it’s a bit of stretch. You clearly think it’s not a stretch. It’s all fine.
“But yeah, it doesn’t really appear to be a dream world and there’s no evidence of a killer persona of some sort stalking her”You mean the trailer that explicitly shows at least three times and then uses a repeated noise cue to signify her ENTERING THE WORLD BY GOING TO SLEEP AND EXITING ON WAKING UP isn’t enough to suggest it’s a dreamworld of at least some sort and the creatures SHOWN TO BE STALKING HER AND THEN THREATENING HER WITH A KNIFE isn’t enough to suggest something’s trying to kill her?My opinion may be based on a 150 second trailer but yours appears to be based on having not watched it at all…
You do you man; it clearly means more to you.
I mean it’s more confusion at how you apparently watched a trailer and then immediately blanked on the entire contents of it.I know I joked about you being high but are you genuinely just high right now?
He didn’t blank. He just didn’t see the farfetched similarities you did.
I was thinking more like the short-lived TV series “Awake”, in which the protagonist alternates between different worlds every time he goes to sleep (although there it’s not clear which is the dream vs reality). Here we see her being attacked when played by McKenzie, although the trailer seems to imply that she becomes Taylor-Joy in the dream world, which is not quite the same as Freddie Krueger only attacking when you’re asleep (I’ve heard there’s one where he’s not limited to that, but my understanding is that everyone disregards that entry).
“Also you assume the time travel is actual time travel and not some nightmare world given it only takes place when she’s asleep as far as the trailer repeatedly shows.”
And you assumed a bunch of shit that has no evidence in the trailer to back it up.
You’re correct. No similarity at all. Also, we must have been watching different trailers.
Slasher Midnight In Paris?
That looks nothing like that at all. Why? Because it involves dreams?
I was a little hesitant with Wright making a film in a genre I don’t tend to like, but it looks refreshingly like something a little different than standard horror fare. Plus Matt Smith.
I like how opulent it looks.
Ed was sitting around one day and thought, “Most horror movies are crap. I’ll show people how it’s done.”
Wait and see. The trailer for Baby Driver looked awesome, and the movie under delivered.
I’m a big fan of Wright, and I agree that Baby Driver is by far his weakest movie. While it’s far from *bad*, I think one reason it suffers a bit is the American setting and characters. This one is set in London, so maybe he’s back in his comfort zone.
It also definitely suffers with “Kevin Spacey grooming a young man”
The scenes with Spacey and the much younger kid are damn near unwatchable now. But at least SPOILER FOR MOVIE FROM 4 YEARS AGO he gets killed at the end.
What did you think Baby Driver lacked? I can’t conceive of anything the trailer could have overpromised on that wasn’t in the end product.Specifically: driving, music, and shooting, and Jon Hamm.
For me personally, it delivered on the things you mentioned, but lacked a romance that worked, a lead with charisma, and a villain (the movie has literally four villains and they keep switching with no rhyme or reason).
I’ll agree the driving, music and shooting were top notch. What it mainly lacked was the ability to make me give a shit about the main character. I have to assume Ansel Elgort was a required hire, because he is completely devoid of charisma.
Same. I’m sure he’s a nice kid in real life, but the bland personality and punchable face just doom any movie that’s centered around Hansel ElbowSorry, Easel MalortPencil SurfbortTonsil AlGoreHandsoap Carport
Ansel Elgort Says Relationship With Accuser Was Consensual, Not AssaultAnsel Elgort Denies Accusation of Sexually Assaulting a Teenage GirlAnsel Elgort Denies Sexual Assault AllegationActor Ansel Elgort denies accusations of sexually assaulting 17-year-old girlOn another note, love your username, even though Robert Moses was such a scumbag that he was featured in an NYC focused D&D campaign as a litch trying to take over the world, through the power of unregulated capitalism! The series is really good, by the way, it’s made by College Humor!https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhOoxQxz2yFPI_0_7EviC1tX_nwq8SNxe
Hmm so maybe Ansel’s face-punchability is actually truth in advertising, just like it is with Martin Shkreli and Stephen Miller.
I think you’re probably so very right.
Robert Moses does seem like a scumbag, but I don’t think a work of fiction can serve as evidence for that.
Unfortunately linking has been broken on Kinja for a while. Te best you can do is put the url in text and we can then copy/paste it. I wouldn’t count n anything getting fixed here.
Right? See also: Alden Ehrenreich and Dane DeHaan (generic white boys #2 and #3).
Alden Ehrenreich is really good in “Hail, Caesar!”
He was competent with a decent script. Counterpoint: Solo
That’s a situation where the original directors got replaced, so the production was something of a mess.
I would watch a film starring Jeppson’s Malort, overpowering all the villains with his aftertaste.
Great song by the Mountain Goats about him tho.
Baby Driver would have made a great short film but there just wasn’t enough content there for a full length movie. All of the action sequences were great but everything else was bland and forgettable. Also it was weird that this 20 year old kid was so obsessed with Classic Rock.
yeah i think it has a lot of great scenes but overall it’s a pretty whatever movie. once i learned wright basically lifted the entire ending from the anime ‘riding bean’ i lost a lot of enthusiasm for it, too.
How’s that weird?
I’m sure there’s a lot of youth out there who listen exclusively to Golden Earring and T. Rex.
Um, he’s one person. It’s not movie about a bunch of people that listen to that stuff. Some people tend to listen to what your parents shared with them. And I believe the movie said as much. It holds sentimentality for him. Also, I know plenty of people who are in their twenties and early thirties that like stuff like that and eighties stuff.
Classic rock is just better than contemporary music.Sincerely,a Millenial
This has big “I comment on YouTube videos about being born in the wrong decade” energy.
Also it was weird that this 20 year old kid was so obsessed with Classic Rock.
Kids who like older music aren’t the norm, but they’re not uncommon enough to register as notably strange for me, especially given that Baby reads as an intentional out-of-step anachronism.
Also, thanks to streaming services it’s arguably never been easier for current generations to access older music.
It was a technically very impressive movie that never succeeded in making me care about the characters or story. Yes, it was very cool how Wright choregraphed it so the sound of slamming car doors synched up with the beats of the soundtrack, but there’s just a giant sucking chest wound at the heart of the movie. And it’s not like it’s one of those movies that does that deliberately — it clearly expects the audience to care about Ansel Elgort and Lily James.
Not sure if it was just an internet rumour, but when I heard John Boyega was originally considered for the part I wept for what could have been.
Much like Drive, I was expecting more from the driving. Not necessarily Fast and Furious-style hijinks, but all the reviews gushed about the car stunts and what I saw was pretty pedestrian. A dozen power slides and a close-up of a speedometer reading 80 when for all the world it looks more like 35.
You take that slander against Drive back.
Hot Fuzz is the only one of Wright’s movies that has lived up to its reputation for me. He’s a decent filmmaker but he’s extremely overrated by online nerds.
I liked some more of his movies, and he has a basic competency that is still better than say, a Zack Snyder movie, but his fans are indeed very zealous.
I’m glad he’ll finally have a female character who’s got a meaningful storyline in one of his films. I say that as a fan…..and a member of the Wright family. 😀
To be fair, “female protagonist” does not necessarily imply “meaningful storyline”, but I share your hope 🙂
No it didn’t. That movie was dope as hell.
I thought Baby Driver kind of sucked personally because the story just fell flat. Felt like I was taking crazy pills because of how much acclaim it got at the time.
Huh?! Baby Driver was awesome!! Whoa.
Whaaaaaaat?! Baby Driver was awesome! Whoa, man.
Baby Driver really convinced me that Wright shines best when directing Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
TBH I’d argue it’s more writing with Simon Pegg than necessarily directing him. Wright is an excellent director, has a great visual sense and his ability to meld older cinematic ideas with his own new inventive ones is great but his non Pegg writing leaves me cold. Both Scott Pilgrim and Baby Driver have lots to love but I never found any personal connection to the film beyond references of stuff I like. They’re very cool but feel pretty empty.
Obviously Spaced and the Cornettos have lots of references to stuff I like but they also have characters I still think about, emotional arcs I actually cared about and thus stories that stuck with me.
I’ll always watch his films, this is no means a heavy criticism. I’m assuming Wright makes the films he wants to make, so fair play. But yeah to me it only seems that when he writes with Pegg does he create something really memorable and special.
Conversely Pegg without Wright writes stuff that seems pretty
bland (right?). Emotionally led without actually anything behind it. I think
they truly bring out the best in each other.
In all the comments here on Wright’s collective works, I’m surprised nobody before you has mentioned Spaced. It might be much less well known in the US than his films. I think some of the music rights prevented it from receiving a proper stateside release for over a decade.
It ain’t Hot Fuzz, but Baby Driver is better than the other two Cornetto films. Shaun of the Dead is rather vacuous, and World’s End is a bit inconsistent. Baby Driver, on the other hand, has incredible momentum, great characters and the amazing editing to that soundtrack that is the film’s gimmick but is pulled off so well that it really elevates the movie.
Looks like Edgar Wright made a Giallo movie. I am so in for that. Plus, his Sparks documentary is also getting released this year.
They couldn’t send her back to a time when a good Bond flick was playing?
The crazy thing about Thunderball is that because of a rights issue it was remade once again with Sean Connery in ‘Never Say Never Again’ and is considered one of the better James Bond movies.
I think people were just happy to have Connery back one last time, but man, I think Thunderball is way better.
Most people don’t consider NSNA a real Bond movie, much less a good one.
Okay, fine, here goes. ‘Never Say Never Again’ is better than anything Pierce Brosnan ever did as well as the last several movies Roger Moore did. It was directed by Irving Kershner (Empire Strikes Back) and had a stunning Kim Basinger in one of her first film roles. The combination of Klaus Maria Brandauer and Barbara Carrera made for one of the best one-two villain pairings in a Bond film. And then you have Sean Connery playing not just James Bond but an older James Bond and he knows he’s older. Because it was not produced by Albert Broccoli people tend to dismiss it but it’s a great movie. This is my hill and I’m ready to die.
Ha, that’s all fair (except “Goldeneye” is top tier). What I mostly remember is the thrilling video game sequence and the femme fatale’s burning boots after she explodes.
Have to co-sign on Goldeneye. Helluva good time and between that and Casino Royale, Martin Campbell should clearly be in charge of introducing audiences to each new Bond.
You’re lucky. All I remember is the string of saliva between Brandauer’s lips and Basinger’s.
“This is my hill and I’m ready to die.
Cool, as long as you are aware that *you* thinking it is one of the better James Bond movies is not a basis for saying “it is considered to be one of the better James Bond movies”.
Counterpoint: The scene where James Bond plays a shitty video game.Never Say Never Again is sub-Die Another Day, and that’s the hill I’m shouting at you from.
NSNA isn’t the complete travesty it’s sometimes painted as, but it’s nowhere near as good as For Your Eyes Only or Octopussy. It compares favourably with A View to a Kill, which blows it by being too long.If watch it before Die Another Day because it’s an outlier, and although it’s more competent than DAD it’s a lot less goofy fun.
I think this just blazed past In The Heights and West Side Story as it rounds the corner and is on the heels of Dune when it comes to upcoming movies I’m most excited about.
You know shit’s gonna get real when they take an upbeat song and make a somber, Norah Jones-esque cover.
It’d be more effective if I could hear it in any voice but Groundskeeper Willy’s.Dooon Tooooon
OCH!
It’s one of those moments where you encounter a piece of pop culture via the simpsons before you encounter it in the wild. I can similarly never really take Cape Fear seriously now if I choose to watch it.
True. One of the miracles about peak Simpsons is their ability to anticipate the pop culture that has staying power. The guest stars they picked in those days really held up, and the things they referenced, even when new, have managed to stick in the public consciousness. It’s easy to forget that Cape Fear (the remake) was brand new when the Simpson’s parodied it, and it could have been that movie was forgotten, and the episode wouldn’t make much sense now. But they riffed on a classic.One of the things that makes the early years so great, and why I don’t care for late Simpsons, is that curation of pop culture. Nowadays, there seems less of it, and they just parody whatever is hip at the moment, or have on as a guest anyone who is hot, but I fear this will date the show severely in years to come, with everyone scratching their heads at just what is being referred to.
I don’t think Cape Fear (Scorcese version) was meant to be taken that seriously in the first place. I saw it on release and the cinema was howling.
I like the song, but I have the same problem. Every time I hear it all I can picture is Willie screaming DOONTOON!!
See, it makes me think of Seinfeld.
You’ve got to go downtown, George. It’s all downtown. Just like the song says.
I knew exactly what the cover of “Downtown” was going to sound like before I even pressed play. I can’t be the only one tired of this “taking classic songs and turning them into breathy, atmospheric, dirges.”
“Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy” – but in Anya’s breakout role (The VVitch) she plays a character named Thomasin! How deep does the conspiracy go?!
the teaser is entirely wordlessNo. Even aside from the song, it also has McKenzie saying the line “Do you believe in ghosts”?
The article mentions that this features the late Dame Diana Rigg. It’s actually her final performance, and Wright wrote a real tearjerker about how committed she was and how she was working on the film right up to the end:https://theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/18/cinema-campari-and-a-carrier-bag-of-quality-street-edgar-wright-remembers-diana-rigg
After what happened to Baby Driver I hope this time around Wright has done a thorough background check of all his actors.
Looks like it will be a better take on “I Know Who Killed Me” with Lindsay Lohan
Last Night in Soho has been my most anticipated film for awhile now as it stars two of the best new actresses Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie & Anya Taylor-Joy. I’ve loved or enjoyed every Edgar Wright picture too, so I’m hyped!
Downtown is perfect for a Horror Movie with the change in tone. Looking forward to this as these types of Horror Movies scare me way more than slashers.A little bit of Rosmary Baby vibe with Suspira to the trailer as it’s the setting to me.
Looks a bit homage-y of giallo/Dario Argento. I can dig it.
Is Anya Taylor-Joy the next Jennifer Lawrence of 6-7 years ago, where she is absolutely everywhere? … Not that I’m complaining. She’s amazing.
For her sake, I hope not, since the world always ends up unfairly turning on the Anne Hathaways and Jennifer Lawrences.
True. Maybe it helps to be international.
Did we turn on Jennifer Lawrence? I’m too old to keep track of this stuff now. Apparently I am supposed to not like Demi Lovato. Am I allowed to root for Lindsey Lohan? I know Brittany is ok again, right?
I don’t know if “we” did, but the same people who ranted about Anne Hathaway, whine about how Lawrence is fake, miscast, and not-as-good-as-she-thinks-she-is. It seems like the fate of most talented, highly awarded, beautiful young actresses. Got to make room for the next one.
She seems to have had a slower rise than Jennifer Lawrence. I mean The Witch was 6 years ago and Thoroughbreds was 4. At both points she was the next J. Law and at least so far, she has kept to doing relatively small work with more critical acclaim than name recognition(even this film is unlikely to be a blockbuster). Jennifer Lawrence by comparison had 2 major franchises and 4 Oscar nominations in a 5 year span that led to some overexposure. If Jennifer Lawrence hadn’t been in The Hunger Games her run might have been more sustainable.
After I’d heard Wright describing how he’d constructed Baby Driver around a playlist instead of a screenplay I was expecting something pretty vacuous and it did meet my expectations on that front. Hopefully there’ll be a bit more substance this time round. These “pastiche” movies do feel like they’re stuck in a 90s time warp though.
Ooh this looks great. I *loved* Baby Driver, and love Tayl0r-Joy, and absolutely cannot wait to see this.
Remember when Winona Ryder acted less crazy than Angelina Jolie ?