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A Healing Retreat in the Desert Turns Out to Be the Last Place Anyone Should Go
Vertical has pulled back the curtain on the first full trailer for Pendulum, the R-rated horror debut from Black Swan co-writer Mark Heyman, and Collider landed the exclusive, because naturally the trailer had to make a pit stop there first. The film opens in theaters on January 1, 2027, so somebody is starting their new year in a cult.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Phoebe Dynevor play Patrick and Abigail, a married couple still reeling from a traumatic event who head to a New Age retreat in New Mexico hoping it will put them back together. Abigail is quickly taken with the group’s mysterious leader, played by Jacki Weaver, while Patrick grows more suspicious by the day. As the paranoia ramps up, the two have to figure out whether the compound’s spiritual practices are real medicine or cover for something far worse. Norman Reedus, Anna Deavere Smith and Jena Malone round out the cast.
Heyman, who also wrote the script, says the story is pulled from his own childhood bouncing around the spiritual groups and gurus his parents chased in the ’70s and ’80s, and that much of it really happened. His pitch for the finished product is blunt: “Only instead of trying to heal you, it’s going to freak you out.”
The movie also reunites Heyman with Darren Aronofsky, who serves as a producer alongside Ari Handel, Jacob Jaffke, Élan Klein Jaffke, Dave Caplan, Elizabeth Gesas and Will Greenfield. It carries an R rating and runs 109 minutes.
Distributor: Vertical
Writer/Director: Mark Heyman
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Phoebe Dynevor, Jacki Weaver, Norman Reedus, Anna Deavere Smith, Jena Malone
Rating/Runtime: R, 109 minutes
Release Date: January 1, 2027 (in theaters)
Source: Reporting and confirmation via Collider.