May 8 Just Became a Major Day for Movie Fans

MovieWeb frequently posts new movie and TV trailers across Facebook and other social media platforms like X and Instagram, pretty much every day. But it’s rare that one day will see the unexpected release of as many movie trailers as have just dropped today, May 8, 2024. We haven’t heard any news about several of these films, and so the polished trailers, images, and release information is quite a surprise. Instead of flooding social media with different posts, we figured we’d put everything in one place — and this is just from May 8!

Handling the Undead – May 31

From the author of the wonderful genre films Let the Right One In (and its American version, Let Me In) and Border, John Ajvide Lindqvist, comes the new film from horror director Thea Hvistendahl, titled Handling the Undead. On a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want?

A Meditation on Death from the Writer of Let the Right One In

A family is faced with their mother’s reawakening before they have even mourned her death after a car accident. An elderly woman gets the love of her life back the same day she has buried her. A grandfather rescues his grandchild from the gravesite in a desperate attempt to get his daughter out of her depression. Handling the Undead is a drama with elements of horror about three families, a story about grief and loss, but also about hope and understanding of what we can’t comprehend or control. Read from the Director’s Statement below:

I wanted to make a film about how people in deep grief would react to getting their dead loved ones back. I wanted to investigate the emotions, conflicts and existential questions that this phenomenon could unearth in someone. To try and give resolution to individuals, characters that are longing for the return of those lost… and show them what this would actually mean. The goal was to make a meditative film about that grief and loss and the impossible wish of wanting the past to become the present. How do we deal with the incomprehensible event when it happens? Who are we after loss? How do we deal with losing someone we love? And how do we, if even possible, move on?

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Firebrand – June 14

Jude Law is unrecognizable as Henry VIII in the upcoming film, Firebrand. In blood-soaked Tudor England, twice-married, accomplished, and educated Katherine Parr (Vikander), reluctantly agrees to become the sixth wife of the tyrannical King Henry VIII (Law). Her consent to marry him carries great personal risk, given that her predecessors are either vanquished, beheaded, or dead. When Henry appoints her as Regent, the nation’s ruler during his absence when he departs to fight overseas, he lays a dangerous path for her.

The Wife of King Henry VIII Fights to Keep Her Head

Henry’s courtiers, suspecting she’s sympathetic to radical Protestant beliefs that have taken root in the kingdom and are a threat to their power, scheme against her and cast doubts upon her fidelity to the increasingly ailing and paranoid King. Once Henry returns to England, his courtiers convince him to turn his fury on the nation’s radicals, including Katherine’s childhood friend Anne Askew, who becomes one of the scores of people convicted of treason and burned at the stake. Horrified and privately grieving, Katherine finds herself under ever-increasing scrutiny and suspicion. Knowing that even a whisper of scandal might lead to her downfall, Katherine must unleash her own scheme to fight for survival.

Latency – June 14

Sasha Luss (Anna) and Alexis Ren (The Enforcer) star in the sci-fi feature debut of writer/director James Croke, Latency. When Hana (Sasha Luss), a professional gamer who suffers from acute agoraphobia, is asked to trial sophisticated new gaming equipment which uses AI to interpret the electrical activity of her brain, she sees an opportunity to enhance her game.

Sasha Luss Goes Sci-Fi

As Hana and her best friend Jen (Alexis Ren) experiment with this new technology, the line between reality and Hana’s subconscious quickly begins to blur, and she starts to wonder if the device is helping her or serving a more sinister force.

The Grab – June 14

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite returns to documentary film 11 years after Blackfish (and just after her 2017 drama, Megan Leavey, surprisingly climbed the charts of Netflix). The Grab has been called “the holy sh*t documentary of the year” by RogerEbert.com, and promises to unveil, after years of intense investigative journalism, a jaw-dropping international conspiracy.

A Disturbing International Conspiracy Gets Uncovered

A global thriller combining hard-hitting journalism from The Center for Investigative Reporting with the compelling character-driven storytelling, The Grab takes you around the globe from Arizona to Zambia, to reveal one of the world’s biggest and least known threats. The filmmakers and journalists receive threats and experience danger as they uncover an effort by powerful international elites to buy up food and property across the globe. This might be the most important movie of the year.

Fancy Dance – June 21

Lily Gladstone earned deserved acclaim for Killers of the Flower Moon, and she’s been earning a lot of love for Fancy Dance on the film festival circuit. Since her sister’s disappearance, Jax (Gladstone) has cared for her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) by scraping by on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma. Every spare minute goes into finding her missing sister while also helping Roki prepare for an upcoming powwow. At the risk of Jax losing custody to Roki’s grandfather, Frank (Shea Whigham), the pair hit the road and scour the backcountry to track down Roki’s mother in time for the powwow.

Lily Gladstone’s Next Acclaimed Movie

What begins as a search gradually turns into a far deeper investigation into the complexities and contradictions of Indigenous women moving through a colonized world while at the mercy of a failed justice system. Gladstone stars alongside Deroy-Olson, Ryan Begay, Crystle Lightning, with Audrey Wasilewski and Whigham. Fancy Dance will premiere in select theaters on June 21, 2024, before streaming globally on Apple TV+ on June 28, 2024.

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Agent Recon – June 21

It’s friggin’ Chuck Norris, dude! In Agent Recon, a covert military task force tracks a mysterious energy disturbance at a secret base in New Mexico that is suspected of experimenting on alien technology.

It’s Chuck Norris, ‘Nuff Said

Once there, the team encounters an unknown being of extraordinary strength and speed, and the ability to control an army of mindless warriors. The trio (Norris, Derek Ting, Marc Singer) must fight through the unstoppable hordes to prevent humanity’s demise.

Twisters – July 19

From the producers of the Jurassic, Bourne and Indiana Jones series comes Twisters, a current-day chapter of the 1996 blockbuster, Twister. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung, the Oscar-nominated writer-director of Minari, Twisters stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell as opposing forces who come together to try to predict, and possibly tame, the immense power of tornadoes. Edgar-Jones stars as Kate Cooper, a former storm chaser haunted by a devastating encounter with a tornado during her college years who now studies storm patterns on screens safely in New York City. She is lured back to the open plains by her friend, Javi (Anthony Ramos) to test a groundbreaking new tracking system.

The Follow-Up to a Classic

There, she crosses paths with Tyler Owens (Powell), the charming and reckless social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures with his raucous crew, the more dangerous the better. As storm season intensifies, terrifying phenomena never seen before are unleashed, and Kate, Tyler and their competing teams find themselves squarely in the paths of multiple storm systems converging over central Oklahoma in the fight of their lives.

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Good One – August 9

Lily Collias, James Le Gros, and Danny McCarthy star in India Donaldson’s insightful, piercing debut, Good One. 17-year-old Sam (Collias) embarks on a three-day backpacking trip in the Catskills with her dad, Chris (Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (McCarthy). As the two men quickly settle into a gently quarrelsome brotherly dynamic, airing long-held grievances, Sam, wise beyond her years, attempts to mediate.

A Film Festival Favorite

But when lines are crossed and Sam’s trust is betrayed, tensions reach a fever pitch, as Sam struggles with her dad’s emotional limitations and experiences the universal moment when the parental bond is tested. Selected in both Sundance and Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, Good One is an emotionally expansive work that probes the limits of familial trust, understanding, and ultimately, forgiveness.

Beezel – TBD

The surprisingly disturbing and enticing little teaser for Beezel, which still lacks a release date, also came out on May 8, and it’s a nasty one. Three successive visitors of a New England home unknowingly step into the nightmarish realm of Beezel, an ageless witch who dwells beneath it and whose existence is intricately entwined with the earth itself. Each new occupant discovers the harrowing truth that lies within the walls of the house.

A Nasty Horror Movie Spans Six Decades

Spanning 60 years, the ill-fated inhabitants succumb to a chilling spiral of tragedy. The unimaginable death of a child acts as a catalyst, unraveling their sanity and inviting malevolence into their lives. Haunting encounters, demonic manifestations, and macabre rituals drive them to the brink of madness, revealing the true extent of Beezel’s power and the depths of her depravity. The film stars Leo Wildhagen, Bob Gallagher, LeJon Woods, Caroline Quigley, Kimberly Salditt-Poulin, Nicolas Robin, Victoria Fratz Fradkin, and Sarah Vular.