One of the most exciting debuts on the 2024 TV premiere schedule is the upcoming thriller True Detective: Night Country, which is set to give audiences all the spine-tingling shivers when it arrives for HBO subscribers (and those with Max subscriptions) in January. And as a horror fan, I couldn’t be more pumped that the fourth season’s first full-length trailer (seen above) is full of the creepy and dread-soaked elements that made the first season such a winner.
With EP Jodie Foster heading up the cast of talented actors, and a new creative force in showrunner and director Issa López, it’s an all new era of True Detective for Season 4, which comes with its own subtitle. This time around, it’s the snowy expanses of Ennis, Alaska that are plagued with dark and grisly incidents, stemming from the unexplained disappearance of a group of eight scientists stationed at an Arctic Research facility.
As the trailer shows, Jodie Foster plays Detective Liz Danvers, who is drawn to the case along with Kali Reis’ Det. Evangeline Navarro, who looks ready to fearlessly stare down whatever this season’s biggest threat might be without blinking. Unless, of course, the biggest threat is whatever inner baggage has made her so on edge to begin with.
Both investigators will struggle with their inner turmoil, as well as their apparent history together, while trying to figure out what the hell is happening to all these bodies. Such as whatever frozen monstrosity is hidden beneath this tarp.
Nothing like a mangled pile of frozen corpses to bring the horror vibes to a murder mystery. I can't even tell if everything under there is human. But I'm of course hoping that's not the case at all.
The most straightforward horror moment in the trailer is no doubt the ghoulish spectre pointing at the camera, as seen below.
I have to assume this visual comes from someone's nightmare sequence, or a hallucination of some kind, since True Detective hasn't explicitly delved into supernatural territory, even if the subject matter feels like it's veering in that direction.
But as it's indicated several times in the trailer, there will indeed be ties to the occult subject matter at the heart of Season 1, from the spiral symbols on walls to the tattoos seen on corpses and others.
Even if True Detective: Night Country is more of a psychological serial killer thriller than a straight-up horror series, it still wins points in my book for toeing the line when possible. Some people don't even consider Jodie Foster's The Silence of the Lambs a horror movie, but it's still one of the more disturbing films out there, so if this hits anywhere in that vicinity, we're all winners. (Also, we totally ranked SotL as one of the 50 Best Horror Movies of All Time.)
Pull out those bloodstain-proof magnifying glasses (which probably amounts to most of them), because True Detective: Night Country will hit HBO and Max on Sunday, January 14. Even if this show doesn’t tip its genre hat too far, check out all the awesome upcoming horror TV shows.
