Searchlight Pictures has released the first trailer for Guillermo del Toro's star-studded noir thriller Nightmare Alley, starring Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara and more.

In the film, Cooper plays Stan Carlisle, an ambitious carny who discovers he has a talent for manipulating people by pretending to be a powerful mind reader and tapping into their deeply-rooted traumas, allowing him to swindle them out of their money. Mara plays Molly, a young carnival worker who becomes Stan's girlfriend and, over time, gets swept up into his increasingly ruthless schemes, while Cate Blanchett plays Dr. Lilith Ritter, a psychiatrist who tries to expose Stan as the charlatan he is. The stacked cast also includes Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, David Strathairn, Jim Beaver, Tim Blake Nelson, Mary Steenburgen, Holt McCallany and Clifton Collins Jr.

RELATED: Guillermo del Toro's Netflix Horror Anthology Reveals Cast & Directors

Nightmare Alley is based on William Lindsay Gresham's 1946 novel of the same name, with del Toro directing and producing from a script he co-wrote with Kim Morgan. Although Gresham's book was famously adapted into a movie starring Tyrone Power in 1947, this new version is said to draw primarily from the source material. And as much as he's known for making films about magical creatures and supernatural entities, del Toro has confirmed there's nothing fantastical about the movie's setting or its characters. So, despite Dafoe's character, the impresario Clem Hoately, asking over and over, "Is he man or beast?" in the trailer, there's not going to be a twist where it turns out Stan is secretly a werewolf or some kind of literal monster.

Whereas del Toro's last movie, the Best Picture Oscar-winning The Shape of Water, was a fairy tale romance with elements of sci-fi and horror, Nightmare Alley promises to be a gritty and bleak affair that, in a time when people are more susceptible than ever to being used by those who tell them exactly what they want to hear, has only taken on greater relevancy since del Toro became interested in adapting Gresham's story in the 1990s. The film also reunites del Toro with many of his trusted collaborators behind the camera, including cinematographer Dan Lausten and composer Alexandre Desplat (who won an Oscar for scoring The Shape of Water).

Nightmare Alley was originally scheduled to arrive on Dec. 3 but will now open in theaters two weeks later on Dec. 17.

KEEP READING: Lightyear: First Trailer for Chris Evans' Toy Story Spinoff May Arrive This Fall

Source: YouTube