Following the release of the official full trailer for Searchlight Pictures’ The Menu, two brand-new posters have been revealed. Stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes are serving up some serious looks for their respective posters. The intention is clear: this fine dining experience is going to be killer.
In Mark Mylod‘s upcoming dark-comedy horror, the Succession director invites audiences to examine an exclusive gourmet “haute cuisine” dining experience, no elite invite necessary. In one poster the enigmatic Chef Slowik (Fiennes) lords over his five-star kitchen, glaring into the camera. In the second poster reveal, Margot (Taylor-Joy), who plays the unwitting girlfriend to Chef Slowik’s fanboy Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), stands her own ground, arms crossed and staring, unflinching, into the camera as well. While on two separate posters, they appear to be daring the other to make the first move. What that first move might mean, however, is a mystery.
In the trailer for The Menu, we see the guests slowly realizing that not all is at it seems at this bizarre dinner. In fact, Fiennes’ poster boasts, “Wonderful surprises await you all,” but his face does not read ‘wonderful’ or ‘surprise’ in the slightest. As the evening takes a nightmarish turn, the eerie synchronicity of Chef Slowik’s staff begins to shift from impressive discipline to a cultish following (one and the same, right Carmy?). Margot, who has no stars in her eyes for this chef’s bloated reputation, has been on edge from the get-go, and her poster illustrates her final-girl tenacity as she stands between Slowik and his staff. Is it a coincidence that Taylor-Joy’s poster declares, “Painstakingly prepared. Brilliant execution,” as a suited guest is shown in anguish in the background over her shoulder? We think not.
Mylod is fairly new to feature films, but his directorial credits are a menu of impressive morsels like HBO’s Game of Thrones, a run with the Emmy Award-winning series Succession, as well as Entourage and Shameless. From the trailer, The Menu is as sharp as Chef Slowik’s command of his staff, and the script lends a nice bite with humor from The Onion‘s head writer Seth Reiss and contributing writer Will Tracy, who worked with Mylod previously on Succession. The unnerving angles are cooked up by David Lynch‘s Mulholland Drive and Sam Raimi‘s Drag Me to Hell cinematographer Peter Deming.
Rounding out the evening’s guest list are John Leguizamo, Janet McTeer (Me Before You), Arturo Castro (Broad City), Aimee Carrero (Blindspot) and Judith Light (Ugly Betty) among others.
Audiences are cordially invited to The Menu on November 18. You can see the posters and watch the full trailer below: