Remain Teaser Review: M. Night Shyamalan’s Remain is deeply unsettling, and the funny part is that it does not look like it would become unsettling towards the end. It looks like a soft, romantic teaser, but suspiciously romantic.
Remain Teaser Review
Jake Gyllenhaal’s Tate Gordon arrives in a small coastal town to complete his project. Then comes a bright, charming, playful woman, Phoebe Dynevor’s Wren, who is capable of pulling him out of his shell.
They laugh, play chess, dance, spend time together; there is flirting, intimacy and a very specific kind of movie romance where two people seem to exist in their own little bubble. The teaser leans into the warmth before you suddenly get reminded and realise that it is M Night Shyamalan’s creation.
That is precisely where Remain starts getting interesting.
The Romance Feels Wrong Before the Horror Does
The teaser’s biggest strength is that it does not immediately announce itself as a supernatural thriller. Remain feels like it could belong to Nicholas Sparks’ universe for a while, which, given the Shyamalan-Sparks collaboration, feels fine.
There is, however, a tiny, almost unexplainable feeling that something is off: it could be the background score, the way Wren walks, pauses between conversations, the way the camera looks at her; nothing says “ghost story” at first sight, but it creates an annoying little instinct that tells you that something is weird.
Then One Question Changes the Teaser
The shift happens when Wren asks Tate why they cannot be together, and Tate replies, “I think you know.”
Until this point, the teaser is filled with lights; the setting almost feels dreamy, and their relationship glows with romance, which is probably going to end. Then suddenly, the warmth disappears, and the lights get darker, the atmosphere heavier. The tonal shift brings something exciting to the teaser.
Remain does not look like separating its romance and horror into two halves but perhaps suggests that romance itself is the unsettling part.
The Bathroom Shouts “Scary”
There then comes the exact point that makes you question your understanding and brain cells. Just when you expect the classic horror-movie jump scare, the teaser pulls another move: the lights come on, nobody is there except tate.
A very Shaymalan move as the scare is not really what you see but what you realise you did niy see. The teaser even says, “Trust the Unknown”.
The Real Mystery Is Not “Who is the Ghost?”
The teaser already gives the viewers enough content to start throwing theories and start discourses. Is Wren a Ghost, or is Tate hallucinating or seeing something that is not there, or is the town itself hiding something, or is Ttae someow connected to something that happened before he visibly arrived?
“Or” is where the teaser gets really interesting: is the relationship the mystery to be decoded because Wren does not feel conventionally scary and there is a difference. That is perhaps what makes Phoebe Dynevor’s character world so well in the teaser: she is not introduced like a horror-movie villain but is introduced as someone Tate is drawn to; someone who makes him feel less alone; and someone who understands him.
This makes the question of “why they cannot be together” more intriguing for even the audience that any jumpscare would be.
Early Verdict: Curious is Perhaps the Right Word
Remain does not look like a straight-up horror film and teaser does not market it that way. It looks like a romantic mystery that is rotten from inside and slowly starts to show up.
The first half of the teaser tells us to fall in love while the second half warns us not to, and the tonal contradiction makes the teaser work uniquely well. There is a huge question mark over whether Shyamalan can successfully balance the sentimental romanticism of Sparks with his own fascination with the supernatural.
As the first impression, Remain manages to create something much more valuable than just a jump scare. It has created suspicion and instilled “or”. You watch Wren and Tate being cute and instead of thinking how cute they are a tiny part of your brain is constantly knocking to ask what is wrong with her and then you immediately feel guilty for thinking that way.
Watch the official teaser of Shyamalan’s Remain on YouTube. The movie is set to release on Valentine’s Day, 2027 in theatres.
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