Trailer of the Week: The Curse Is Already Making Everyone Uncomfortable

In this week’s most intriguing previews, Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone take on the fake coziness of home renovation shows — watch out, Magnolia Network — Bill Pullman goes on trial for murder (in a dramatization of one of the biggest cases of the century so far), and Jodie Foster catches more than a chill as True Detective’s new lead investigator.

Best trailer for the week of September 25: The Curse, premieres November 10 on Paramount+ With Showtime 

The slightly discordant guitar notes are the first clue that something is amiss in the first teaser for The Curse, a new comedy-drama from Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie — well, aside from the fact that it’s a show from Fielder and Safdie, who know how to walk the razor-thin line between unnerving and intolerable. Fielder and Emma Stone star as a couple, not unlike, say, Joanna and Chip Gaines or Tarek El Moussa and Christina Hall, who have greatness thrust upon them in the form of a home renovation show for trying to “responsibly” gentrify a neighborhood in New Mexico. Fielder and Stone’s smiles grow increasingly strained between takes for the show within a show, perhaps because their relationship is already suffering from the titular curse. Like these new lifestyle gurus, viewers should be prepared for just about anything. The Curse premieres November 10 on Paramount+ With Showtime, two days before its linear debut on Showtime. 

Honorable Mention: Murdaugh Murders: The Movie, premieres October 14 on Lifetime

Following a ribald turn in This Fool Season 2, Bill Pullman heads up this ripped-from-the-headlines story as Alex Murdaugh, who was found guilty of the murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul. (Alex and his surviving son maintain his innocence.) It looks like a cut-and-dried Lifetime movie: hidden motives, a slightly off-kilter lead performance, and a goofy line or two. Murdaugh Murders: The Movie will air over two nights on Lifetime.

Honorable Mention: Rick and Morty Season 7, premieres October 15

Aw jeez, looks like it wasn’t too hard for Adult Swim to find some spot-on soundalikes to replace Rick and Morty’s Justin Roiland, who parted ways with the show in January of this year over allegations of domestic abuse, for Season 7. The cable network hasn’t revealed the names of the new cast member or members, but you’d be hard-pressed to tell these vocals apart from Roiland’s. Meanwhile, Dan Stevens took over for Roiland on Solar Opposites.

Honorable Mention: True Detective: Night Country, premieres January 14, 2024

Jodie Foster braves the cold in True Detective: Night Country as the latest world-weary investigator to become immersed in a case that has wider ramifications than justice for its victims. Veteran detective Liz Danvers (Foster) teams up with Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), who seems to want a mentor more than she lets on, to solve the disappearance of eight workers from the Tsalal Arctic Research Station. Issa López (Tigers Are Not Afraid) helms all six episodes of this installment of the HBO anthology, which already looks both promising and foreboding.