Netflix Releases Eerie Trailer For FBI Drama Mindhunter

Jonathan Groff is developing a portrait of a serial killer in the new trailer for Mindhunter, an upcoming Netflix series from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button's David Fincher. The show, set in 1979, stars Groff as Holden Ford, an agent in the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit who develops profiling techniques as he hunts down killers. Mindhunter is based on the book Mind Hunter: Inside FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas, who was an FBI profile who interviewed famous killers like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Dennis Rader.

"It's not easy butchering people," one of the killers tells Holden at the start of the trailer. "It's hard work physically and mentally. I don't think people realize. You need to vent, you know. There's a lot more like me." 

Holden, clearly disturbed by what he hears, then explains that it is his job to travel around the country teaching FBI techniques to police officers. This ends up getting him involved with the case of a young girl who was brutally murdered. "What people won't do to each other, there's nothing people won't do," a man says to him. 

Holden apparently has some unique ideas about how to pursue his cases, which involve talking to the killers to figure out how they think. This draws the attention of a psychologist (Anna Torv), who sees the potential for an unprecedented study.

"Psychopaths are convinced that there's nothing wrong with them, so these men are virtually impossible to study," she says. "You have found a way in near perfect laboratory conditions. That's what makes this so exciting and potentially so far reaching." 

Holden's unique methods draw some ire from his fellow FBI agents, who say that it is their job to execute killers, not to commiserate with them. "There's no procedural rule book for how to talk to these people," Holden says. "How do we get ahead of crazy if we don't know how crazy thinks?" adds his partner Bill (Holt McCallany).  

Mindhunter is written by playwrights Joe Penhall (Blue/Orange) and Jennifer Haley (The Nether), with Fincher set to direct episodes along with Asif Kapadia (Senna), Tobais Lindholm (A Hijacking), and Andrew Douglas (The Amityville Horror). He also executive produces along with Charlize Theron and Gone Girl's Joshua Doren and Cean Chaffin. The show will hit Netflix on Oct. 13; for now, see some upcoming releases you didn't realize the streamer was working on.