What On Earth Is Going On In Alexander Skarsgård's Infinity Pool Trailer?

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and to the delight of horror fans everywhere, that's certainly true of Brandon Cronenberg, the son of famed director David Cronenberg. The younger Cronenberg seems to have inherited the body horror gene as evidenced by his projects.

In 2012, Cronenberg made his feature directorial debut with "Antiviral." The film stars Caleb Landry Jones as an employee of the Lucas Clinic, a company that supplies superfan clients with celebrity viruses and pathogens. Cronenberg told CBC, "I was delirious and was obsessing over the physicality of illness, the fact that there was something in my body and in my cells that had come from someone else's body." The filmmaker followed up "Antiviral" with 2020's "Possessor," which is as psychological as it is corporeal. The film follows an assassin (Andrea Riseborough) who carries out hits by inhabiting other people's bodies.

Now, Cronenberg is back with his third feature, the creepy and surreal "Infinity Pool," starring Alexander Skarsgård.

The trailer for "Infinity Pool" starts out normal enough. James and Em, played by Alexander Skarsgård and Cleopatra Coleman, are luxe travelers at a beachside "White Lotus"-esque retreat. But the appearance of Mia Goth, who has lent her delightfully unsettling aura to films like Claire Denis' "High Life" and Ti West's "Pearl," is a red flag that this will not be a normal vacation.

Indeed, things take a turn when James accidentally kills a man with his car. In the film's fictional land, the punishment for the crime is death — that is, unless James can pony up enough money to create and kill a doppelgänger in his stead. From there, the trailer escalates into a frenzy of cult-like hedonism, where fleshy masks abound and Goth's seductive Gabi is seemingly the central agent of chaos.

"Infinity Pool" premieres in theaters on January 27.