Assassination Nation, Sam Levinson's lurid Sundance hit, has no time for politeness. In the trailer, which drops today, its female main cast are aggressive, sly, and unapologetic. Considering the current conversation about civility and respectability, it's just in time.
The movie follows a group of 18-year-old girls — played by Odessa Young, Bella Thorne, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, and Abra — who lead the charge in a battle cry against the men in their town. The movie poses as a modern-day Salem witch trials. (It even takes place in a fictional town called Salem.) Each girl is fostering a secret. When these secrets come to light, the mob descends, aided by Twitter, Tumblr, and Snapchat. And, when the mob descends, the girls fight back in a very real way. Think of it as The Purge, but for 18-year-old women. Per The Verge's review of the movie, the climax of the film results in, well, quite a few deaths. Q.E.D., Assassination Nation has no time for politeness.
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The movie has an impressive cast. The main girls aside, it also stars Joel McHale of The Soup and Bill Skarsgard of It. Colman Domingo (Fear of the Walking Dead) plays a put-upon school principal who is accused of pedophilia. Sam Levinson, the writer behind HBO's The Wizard of Lies, directed the movie. (This is his second feature film as a director.)
"[Assassination Nation] deals with morality in such an unflinching way and in a new way because it deals with how morality is thought about and dealt with in the age of social media," Young told Variety at Sundance this year. In the same interview, McHale called the script "bonkers."
We'll leave the "bonkers" quotient up to you. Because is it really that bonkers to have teenaged women taking matters into her own hands?
Watch the full red band trailer, below, and see it in theaters September 21.