[Trailer] Guillermo del Toro‘s 'Nightmare Alley' Takes Viewers to a Dark Carnival

The trailer for Guillermo del Toro‘s new movie Nightmare Alley has arrived from Searchlight Pictures. So step right up and be lured into the noir carnival where the people are the real monsters. The film stars Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, and David Strathairn. The highly anticipated film was written by del Toro and Kim Morgan and heads only to theaters on December 17.

While Nightmare Alley clearly features del Toro‘s signature dark hues and red tones, he wants to let fans know that this is NOT a horror film. “It has happened to me in the past with Crimson Peak, where people went in expecting a horror movie. But yes, this has no supernatural element. It’s based completely in a reality world. There is nothing fantastic. It’s a very different movie from my usual,” del Toro told Vanity Fair.

The story is based on a novel with the same name by author William Lindsay Gresham which was published in 1946. Del Toro first became interested in the story thanks to actor Ron Perlman (Cronos, Hellboy, Pacific Rim), who brought him the story with hopes to create the project together. However nailing down the rights to the project, proved to be difficult and forced the idea to be shelved. “So I put it on the back burner,” he says.

Del Toro said he continued to want to get the project off the ground and onto screens. “When I was growing up, I wanted for sure to do two genres: noir and horror,” and this story was his chance to tell a true noir tale. “The carnival is almost like a microcosm of the world,” del Toro says.

“Everybody’s there to swindle everybody. But at the same time in the carnival, the [workers] know they need each other. In the city, much less so.” The synopsis of the film reads: An ambitious young carny (Cooper) with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist (Blanchett) who is even more dangerous than he is.

Nightmare Alley stars Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, and David Strathairn. You can check out the trailer for Nightmare Alley below and the film will head to theaters December 17. Be sure to follow ScaryNerd for more of all things horror, sci-fi and more.