Christian Bale plays an 1830s detective tasked with solving a series of grisly, possibly cult-related murders in Netflix’s ice-cold thriller, “The Pale Blue Eye.” Watch the first trailer above.
Scott Cooper’s film, which the streamer acquired last year in a $55 million deal, takes place at West Point Academy, a military training school. When a cadet turns up dead, its leadership turns to Augustus Landor (Bale) for help – a local detective who, if rumors are true, “once elicited a confession with nothing more than a piercing look”.
The trailer opens on a wintry landscape, where Landor contemplates the crime at hand – a soldier has been hanged, with his heart expertly cut out from his chest.
What initially seems like the act of a “madman” gives way to a larger conspiracy, as more bodies turn up and scraps of paper with strange symbols emerge as clues.
“There are instructions for immortality,” one character says. “Man will do most anything to cheat death,” adds another.
It’s a race against the clock as Landor, with help from a young poet named Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling), desperately try to make sense of what is happening and prevent the loss of more lives.
Written and directed by Cooper and adapted from Louis Bayard’s 2003 novel, “The Pale Blue Eye” also stars Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Hadley Robinson, Timothy Spall, Joey Brooks, Brennan Cook, Gideon Glick, Fred Hechinger, Matt Helm, Jack Irving, Steven Maier, Charlie Tahan and Robert Duvall.
Along with Cooper and Bale, the film is produced by Tyler Thompson and John Lesher. Executive Producers are Tracey Landon, Dylan Weathered, Louis Bayard, Chris Sharp, Jennifer Lamb, Emily Salveson, and Ryan Smith, with Catherine Farrell and Chris Surgent co-producing.
“The Pale Blue Eye” debuts in select theaters Dec. 23 and on Netflix Jan. 6, 2023.
Watch the trailer in full above.