The logline for Steven Soderbergh’s mysterious new film, Presence, reads, “A family moves into a suburban house and becomes convinced they’re not alone.” But there’s no need for our protagonists—played by Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Eddy Maday, and Callina Liang, with an assist from Julia Fox—to go into full panic mode just yet. From the short teaser released by Neon today, all they really have to worry about at this stage is being haunted by a bunch of old, spooky, shriveled up… Steven Soderbergh movies.That’s quite literally all we see in this teaser, which clearly took a few notes from the excellent dread and mystery campaign launched by its fellow Neon release, Longlegs, earlier this year. Maybe you’ll be able to spot something lurking in the shadows that this writer missed if you turn your brightness all the way up or something, but to us, it just looks like a slow-panning shot from the inside of a suburban house as titles like Magic Mike and Erin Brockovich flash on the screen. It’s a little goofy, but it doesn’t not work either.Even though Presence had its worldwide premiere at Sundance earlier this year, the team is clearly going hard on the mystery aspect. In that spirit, we obviously won’t spoil the (very intriguing) conceit here, but the information is out there if you want to go hunting for it.We will leave you with a quote from a panel Soderbergh did at the festival, because it only adds to the already-mounting intrigue. “I had real questions about the choice,” the director said, via IndieWire. “I’ve been beating this drum hard for a long time, ‘It’s never gonna work,’ and then, I’m like, ‘No, the only way to do it is you never, you never turn around.’” Hey Neon, if you want to use that idea in the next teaser, this writer's royalty fee is very, very low.Presence arrives in theaters on January 17.
