It’s been four years since British pop auteur Edgar Wright last hit the big screen with his chaotically rhythmic car-chase opera Baby Driver, but now the director is finally returning to screens with Last Night in Soho, set to release October 22. And from the looks of the first trailer, this is going to be a far cry from the goofball days of Shaun of the Dead , Scott Pilgrim and Hot Fuzz.
The trailer for the psychological thriller doesn’t give away an awful lot about the trippy-looking film, but what we do see is wild, with Thomasin McKenzie's modern-day fashion fan seeming to transport back to the mod London of the '60s and into the body of one of her idols, played in full '60s regalia by Anya Taylor Joy.
When the past lets you in, the truth will come out. Directed by @edgarwright, watch the trailer for #LastNightInSoho. In theaters this October. pic.twitter.com/h40N6Vf1lo
— Last Night in Soho (@lastnightinsoho) May 25, 2021
The sneak peek is loaded with vivid and sensual imagery evoking Italian giallo aesthetics, with splashes of blaring primary colour and intrusive camerawork evoking the works of Dario Argento, complete with a very menacing knife. Wright has also cited such ‘60s classics as Roman Polanski’s paranoid nightmare Repulsion —which gets a direct reference via an intense sequence involving hands ripping through walls — and Nicolas Roeg’s skin-crawling Don’t Look Now as huge influences. Throw some ghosts, a little David Lynch and a dash of Nicholas Winding Refn and you're close to the vibe Wright is putting down.
"It will feel very different to my other films," Wright told Empire back in June of 2020 before the already-completed film was delayed by the pandemic. "Last Night starts in a more psychological realm and then starts to get increasingly intense as it goes along. And I always like to gravitate towards making a film in genres I miss, and there’s a certain type of psychological horror film that you got more in the ’60s and ’70s that have something of an operatic nature."
Wright is a director who strikes a deft balance between wearing his influences on his sleeve and doing something wholly unexpected and original with their components. So expect the director to deliver on the promise to twist your brain in October.
Prepare for Last Night with Time Out's 100 favourite horror films
And see what Edgar Wright had to say about his career in this exclusive Time Out interview from 2017