Former Harry Potter star Emma Watson is better than us. It's just a fact, and it's time we accepted it. She just exists on a higher plane than us mere mortals, joining the likes of Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone in the upper echelon of flawlessness. Not only did she help craft one of the most influential feminist icons for young women around the world in her bookishly badass Hermione Granger, but she also found time to get an Ivy League education and give awesome speeches at the U.N. as well. Now she's poised to reimagine one of our childhood's most beloved icons in Disney's live-action remake of Beauty And The Beast . But first, Emma Watson is starring in Regression so she can scare our pants off — and you should be totally excited about this upcoming thriller even if scary movies are, like, your least favorite thing EVER.
The full trailer for Regression , from Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar, was released on Wednesday, and it came with all the usual horror movie trappings: gloomy visuals, a tense soundtrack, creepy old ladies, and things that go bump in the night. But it also had something most horror movies dont: Emma Watson being her usual flawless self. There are probably some among us who wouldn't normally be caught dead in a theater that was screening a scary movie, but here are seven reasons you should make an exception for Regression:
1. It Stars Emma Watson
The best reason to see an Emma Watson movie is because it stars Emma Watson. Well, duh. I know it goes without saying, but I'm still going to say it, because she even manages to look on fleek while ugly-crying her way through a horror movie. #notfair.
2. It's A New Genre For Her
There's nothing worse than watching an actor you love get stuck playing the same kind of role over and over again. Watson is too smart to make such an elementary mistake; she hasn't tackled the same genre twice since the Harry Potter franchise ended. Since then she's appeared in a biopic (My Week With Marilyn), a coming-of-age story (The Perks Of Being A Wallflower), an indie-pop crime film (The Bling Ring), a post-apocalyptic comedy (This Is The End), a biblical epic (Noah), and now a thriller (Regression) and a fairy tale (Beauty And The Beast). It's imperative that us Watsoners support her continued exploration — and, yes, in this case it means sitting through a movie sure to give us nightmares for weeks afterwards. How selfless of us.
3. It Reunites Her With A Harry Potter Castmate
Regression doesn't seem like a supernatural-type horror movie, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the dude helping Emma Watson's dad retrieve his memories is about to turn into a slobbering werewolf at any moment. Oh, never mind, silly me; that's just because he's played by David Thewlis, aka Professor Lupin. He terrorized Watson during the climax of Prisoner Of Azkaban; now it's only fair that she returns the favor.
4. It Also Stars Ethan Hawke
When the apparently ageless actor isn't busy racking up accolades and Oscar nominations for his appearance in critically-adored Richard Linklater films, Ethan Hawke has somehow become the go-to guy for modern thrillers. Between the likes of Daybreakers, Sinister, The Purge, and now Regression, he's unexpectedly owning the horror genre in the same way Liam Neeson suddenly unexpectedly started owning the action genre. He just makes good scare-face, I guess.
5. It's Directed By Alejandro Amenábar
Regression's director will see Ethan Hawke's four Oscar nominations and raise him one Oscar win. 43 year old Amenábar took home the trophy for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2005 Academy Awards for his Javier Bardem-starring biopic Mar adentro, aka The Sea Inside. Even more apropos to the topic at hand, Amenábar also directed the 2001 horror film The Others, praised for its suffocating atmosphere and tremendous performance by Nicole Kidman. The Others is also famous for having one of the best twist endings of all time, so we should probably prepare ourselves for similar levels of WTF-ness here.
6. It Tackles A Sensitive Subject
While Insidious: Chapter 3 and the remake of Poltergeist are in theaters mining their scares from ghosts and astral projection and other supernatural nonsense, Regression aims to strike fear with a topic much closer to home: the horrific abuse of a young woman. According to the official synopsis, Watson plays "Angela, who accuses her father [...] of an unspeakable crime." Violence against women is obviously a very hot-button issue right now, between recent events on Game Of Thrones , and Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller's comments on TV's obsession with rape. It will be interesting to see how Amenábar plans to tackle this tricky subject.
7. It's Even Got A Creepy Doppelgänger
Of course, every good horror movie worth its salt needs at least one of the following: creepy children, creepy old people, or creepy doppelgängers (like in Sophie Turner's Another Me ). Thanks to the trailer, we know Regression already ticks the "creepy old people" box. Well, the film also has a doppelgänger — not onscreen, but in real-life. Aaron Ashmore (above) has a role in the movie, and, if his picture looks familiar from the likes of X-Men or FOX's The Following (or, let's be real, the awesome '90s Animorphs series), well... you'd be wrong. You're thinking of Aaron's identical twin brother Shawn Ashmore. Aaron Ashmore is famous for playing Jimmy Olsen on Smallville, and Steve Jinks in Warehouse 13. (You thought they were the same person this whole time, didn't you? I totally just blew your mind.)
Watch the trailer below.
Images: The Weinstein Company (3); Justin Tallis, Jason Kempin, Robyn Beck, Javier Soriano, Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
