High-Rise has taken a long, long time to get to screens, and the end results have been a love-it-or-hate-it proposition for audiences. This isn’t surprising, as J.G. Ballard’s main theme as a novelist has always been that modern life is warping humanity into strange, dangerous shapes — whether it’s the emotionally disconnected fetishists of Crash or the actual, horrific things he witnessed in China as a child during WWII recounted in Empire of the Sun. High-Rise, apparently, will deliver on these themes and then some if this trailer is any indication.
High-Rise takes place in the ’70s in an apartment block; the higher up you are, the more it costs and the more luxuries you enjoy. Robert Laing, played by Tom Hiddleston, moves into this metaphor and as he settles in, he begins to notice the building is as much designed to isolate the residents and stratify them into tribes as it is to offer them a place to live. Things promptly go to hell from there as the social experiment kicks in and goes off the rails.
Coming from horror director Ben Wheatley, there’s a distinct hint of Cronenberg to the proceedings — ranging from a little nod to Scanners to a casting gag or two. Audiences will get a sense of how much quickly, as the movie arrives in the United States April 28 on VOD and in theaters May 13.
