Usually when we call book trailers “cinematic,” we’re being generous. But the trailer for Marisha Pessl‘s upcoming genre-bending thriller Night Film (Aug. 20) really may be the slickest book trailer we’ve seen in a while.
And the novel, if you can even call it that (I prefer “multimedia experience”), warrants the big-budget ramp-up. It begins when the daughter of a reclusive horror film director Stanislav Cordova is found dead, and fallen journalist Scott McGrath falls into the maddening wormhole of trying to uncover the truth behind the girl’s murder. Night Film gets darker and more twisted the deeper McGrath ventures into Cordova’s world—the man hasn’t been seen in public in 30 years, and his films are so horrifying that it’s believed the person who created them must be seriously disturbed as well. Pessl, author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, includes artifacts and case evidence, like authentic-looking screenshots, police documents, and transcripts, into the maze-like narrative, and in a meta twist, the promotion for Night Film assumes Cordova’s world is real. The trailer below, produced by ApKMedia, is just the first taste.