Cell trailer: Stephen King film puts Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack in a mobile phone-induced zombie apocalypse

"If we're gonna survive this, people are gonna die"

Jacob Stolworthy
Wednesday 27 April 2016 10:50 BST
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Cell - Official Trailer

However they end up, there's always a sense of anticipation surrounding an adaptation of Stephen King's horror novels.

They are works that filmmakers will turn to time and again despite varying results over the past four decades: there's the brilliant (Carrie, The Shining); the surprising (The Mist, 1408); and the oh-God-it's-bad-stay-away (Secret Window, Maximum Overdrive).

Save for recent Fox series 11/22/63, however, they've been few and far between of late. But with promising versions of both It and The Dark Tower finally underway, a trailer for Cell has arrived, a film version of which has been in the works since the novel's release back in 2006.

The story is standard King; a pulse, sent through mobile phones the world over, turns users into frenzied killing machines.

Artist Clayton Riddell (who fortunately isn't using his phone when the pulse hits), assisted by civilian Tom McCourt, must battle for survival while attempting to find his son.

That the two leads are played by John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson - who both starred in 2007 King property 1408 - is a reason for excitement, even if the former's been fairly candid about the project since filming ended in 2013.

King himself co-penned the script alongside Adam Alloca in a bid to alter the ending notoriously derided by his novel's readers.

Tod Williams (Paranormal Activity 2) directs the film which co-stars Stacy Keach and Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan).

Cell will get a US VOD release on 10 June with a limited cinema release following in July. UK dwellers will unfortunately have to wait but, to us, it looks like B-movie gold.

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