'Dark Places' Trailer: Charlize Theron Survives a Massacre

The first U.S. trailer for Dark Places has finally arrived, featuring Charlize Theron in the latest film adaptation of one of best-selling author Gillian Flynn’s novels. Flynn also wrote the novel (and subsequent screenplay) for last year’s Gone Girl, though it doesn’t seem like Dark Places is going to be as big of a hit — the film is currently available on DirecTV almost two months ahead of its theatrical release.

This is definitely the best trailer yet for Dark Places, which stars Theron as Libby, a woman who lost her mother and two sisters in what she describes as a “massacre” allegedly perpetrated by her older brother. While he sits in prison for his supposed crime, a group of self-styled sleuths known as the Kill Club try to convince Libby that her brother is innocent and the real culprit is still out there.

Nicholas Hoult plays one of the members of the Kill Club, which has a pretty silly name, but even sillier is his line, “We solve crimes. It’s what we do.” Hopefully the film is as compelling as the rest of the trailer suggests. Flynn’s novel is more of a mystery thriller and isn’t as thematically weighty as Gone Girl, but perhaps fans of both Flynn and David Fincher’s film version of Gone Girl will be drawn to Dark Places.

Here is the very lengthy plot synopsis:

Libby Day (Charlize Theron) was only seven years old when her mother and two sisters were brutally murdered in their rural Kansas farmhouse. In court, the traumatized child pointed the finger at her brother, Ben (Tye Sheridan), and her testimony put the troubled 16-year-old in prison for life. Twenty-five years later, a broke and desperate Libby has run through donations from a sympathetic public and royalties from her sensational autobiography, without ever moving past the events of that night.
When Libby accepts a fee to appear at a gathering of true-crime aficionados led by Lyle Wirth (Nicholas Hoult), she is shocked to learn most of them believe Ben is innocent and the real killer is still at large. In need of money, she reluctantly agrees to help them reexamine the crime by revisiting the worst moments of her life. But as Libby and Lyle dig deeper into the circumstances surrounding the murders, her recollections start to unravel and she is forced to question exactly what she saw—or didn’t see. Aslong-buried memories resurface, Libby begins to confront the wrenching truths that led up to that horrific night. Also starring Christina Hendricks, Corey Stoll and Chloë Grace Moretz, Dark Places is an ingeniously twisted thriller based on the best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl).

Dark Places also stars Christina Hendricks, Corey Stoll, Tye Sheridan and Chloe Grace Moretz, and hits theaters on August 7.