Netflix unveiled a trailer for its upcoming detective thriller film Reptile — and its visual style and warped religious imagery have audiences comparing it to the renowned HBO series True Detective.
While it's too early to say whether Reptile, which begins streaming on October 6, will live up to such lofty praise, it looks like the film has a shot. Benicio Del Toro, Justin Timberlake, and Alicia Silverstone are set to star, and it's hard to imagine an actor of Del Toro's caliber would attach his name to a project that is anything shy of exceptional.
Perhaps Reptile could be to Timberlake what True Detective was to Matthew McConaughey: A gritty role that helps to rebrand the former NSYNC singer as a master of his craft capable of bringing home an Oscar.
Netflix teases the plot as follows: "A mysterious murder. A hardened detective. A truth more dangerous than they could have ever imagined."
The trailer opens with what appears to be an interrogation of Del Toro's character. To the tune of an eerie rendition of Juice Newton's "Angel of the Morning," we see a foggy outdoor setting, a drained color palette, and creepy religious imagery, including an angel wearing a ball gag. These elements had viewers comparing it to 2014's Emmy-dominating True Detective.
"I wanted to create this multifaceted sense of deception that was both in the experiences of the characters, as well as in the structure of the storytelling. That was something that excited me," first-time feature director Grant Singer previously told EW. "I think the movie will be exciting to people who like to watch something where you don't know where it's leading you, where a film is going to have twists and turns and deceive you. And people who like things that are intense and visceral and suspenseful, I think they'll find something exciting in this."
