Hey guys! Horrorella here...
The trailer for Ben Wheatley's new film HIGH RISE has finally arrived, cementing itself as one of my highly anticipated films of 2016. Wheatley has already established himself as a director content to play by his own rules, delivering fascinating and highly complex films that challenge his audience in a new way every time. I love how KILL LIST is drastically different from SIGHTSEERS, and how A FIELD IN ENGLAND stands apart from both of them. The films are very different, and yet manage to all get under your skin in an unexpected way.Hopefully, HIGH RISE will offer a similar experience.
HIGH RISE is an adaptation of J.G. Ballard's novel, and tells the story of a beautiful but somewhat foreboding luxury apartment complex and its inhabitants.
The film follows a young, respectable doctor, Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston, also appearing at the Festival in I Saw the Light) who moves into a new luxury apartment seeking anonymity. The building, a Brutalist concrete tower block, is inhabited by eccentric tenants who let off steam in endless rounds of themed parties and raucous, drink-and-drug-fuelled orgies. Sitting literally atop this insular society is the high-rise’s architect and owner, Mr. Royal (Jeremy Irons), whose penthouse suite beggars description and has nothing to do with the rest of his design. As Robert settles into his new abode without ever really unpacking properly, the tower and its social complexities begin to take over his life.
Royal says he built the high-rise as “an agent for change,” but what Ballard and Wheatley both focus on is the class strife brewing between residents of the upper and lower floors. What starts out as competitive hijinks takes a turn toward tribalism and anarchy as the whole edifice begins to rot from within.
Magnet has released the first trailer, inviting the viewer into the world of HIGH RISE and all that it has to offer. No release date has been announced yet, but hopefully we should be seeing something soon.
What do you guys think?
