If there’s anything you need to know about M. Night Shyamalan’s filmography, it’s that the director has a penchant for making movies that are truly strange and twisted. The latest from Shyamalan is no different, following an increasingly dark series of unfortunate events that fall upon a group of tourists visiting an exotic private island.
In Old, a family of four arrives at a private island with the intention of getting away from the business of their everyday lives and just relaxing. When they get there, however, they find that their destination isn’t so private after all; they’re joined by several other people who fled to the island for the exact same reasons. But their fellow guests aren’t even the worst part of this vacation — there’s something sinister afoot on this supposed dream getaway.
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The youngest travellers happen upon a random collection of discarded personal items along the beach only to then discover a rapidly decomposing human corpse. As the day passes, the tourists find that whatever happened to the dead woman is also happening to them. People are greying and wrinkling, bones are getting weaker, kids are going through puberty in seconds instead of years. Whatever is happening on this island is obviously not good, but there’s no escaping it.
Time (and possibly a strange curse) is the villain of this story. There’s only aging and then...death. Not exactly what you had in mind for a relaxing vacation.
If you’ve ever stumbled upon a dark story called Sandcastle, you might be familiar with the premise, as Old is a film adaptation of Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters’ 2013 graphic novel. It will be Shyamalan’s first project since Glass, the critically acclaimed final installment of his Unbreakable trilogy, and its trailer promises a film that’s truly dark-sided — just the way he likes it. The project also boasts a talented ensemble of familiar and new faces; Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps star, and they’re joined by Thomasin McKenzie, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee, Aaron Pierre, Alex Wolff, Embeth Davidtz, Eliza Scanlen, Emun Elliott, and Kathleen Chalfant.