Skip to main content

Chris Hemsworth crosses moral lines in Spiderhead trailer

Because of his reputation as an action star, and his leading role in Marvel’s Thor movies, we tend to expect Chris Hemsworth to portray the hero all of the time. However, Hemsworth really plays against type in the new trailer for the Netflix original film, Spiderhead. That’s why it’s fitting that the actor’s last line in the trailer seems to call out that fact: “Beautiful people get away with too much. I say that having benefited myself from time to time.”

In the film, Hemsworth portrays Steve Abnesti, a scientist who runs the Spiderhead penitentiary that gives the movie its name. Steve is all smiles for his inmates even as he doses them with mind-altering drugs that seem capable of transforming their personalities. The inmates don’t get a lot of say about when and how they’re experimented on. The tradeoff is that they might get reduced sentences. Assuming ,of course, that they live through the experience.

Spiderhead | Chris Hemsworth | Official Trailer | Netflix

Two inmates, Jeff (Miles Teller) and Lizzy (Jurnee Smollett), form a connection outside of Steve’s experiments. And he just can’t leave it alone. Steve can’t resist pushing his experiments on the two even further until they are forced to question whether the connection they feel is real … or if it’s dependent upon the surgically attached devices that drug them at Steve’s whim.

Chris Hemsworth in Spiderhead.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Tess Haubrich also stars in the film as Heather, with BeBe Bettencourt as Emma, Mark Paguio as Verlaine, Sam Delich as Adam, Joey Vieira as Miguel, Daniel Reader as Ryan, Ron Smyck as Dave, Stephen Tongun as Ray, and Charles Parnell as Knowles.

Recommended Videos

Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski helmed Spiderhead from a script by Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, which in turn was based upon the short story “Escape from Spiderhead” by George Saunders. It will premiere on Netflix on June 17.

Blair Marnell
Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek…
This 2017 Tom Cruise thriller is the most popular movie on Netflix. Here’s why you should watch it
Tom Cruise pointing at a plane in American Made.

As an aging movie star who is driven to entertain his audience, Tom Cruise has committed himself to more and more daring stunts with each movie he puts out. In each of these movies, Cruise seems to be playing a version of himself, a harried man who is also confident that he's the only one who can keep it all going.

There was a time, though, when Cruise was willing to deliver much more full-bodied performances in everything from Born on the Fourth of July to Magnolia. Even more recently, though, Cruise has found vehicles that allow him to give a more complete performance, and one of those movies is now trending on Netflix. American Made was released in 2017, and its success on Netflix is suggestive of what the movie does well. Here are three reasons you should check it out:
It's a grounded crime thriller

Read more
Painkiller meets horror in The Fall of the House of Usher trailer
Bruce Greenwood in The Fall of the House of Usher.

If you've ever read Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, then you know that it doesn't have a story long enough to support eight episodes of television. However, for Mike Flanagan's final project at Netflix, the upcoming miniseries for The Fall of the House of Usher will be drawing upon more than just Poe's original story. Flanagan incorporates elements of Poe's other tales to expand the story of the doomed Usher family. And if the first trailer is any indication, Flanagan is also adding a touch of Painkiller and Succession to the gothic horror of Poe.

The Fall of the House of Usher | Official Trailer | Netflix

Read more
3 Netflix movies like Gran Turismo you should watch right now
Archie Madekwe looks at David Harbour in Gran Turismo.

Although the true story behind Gran Turismo is unique, the movie is far from the first to tell a story about the world of professional racing. In the long history of Hollywood, plenty of major movie stars have set their sights on the world of racing, whether those stories are set in America or elsewhere in the world.

While some of those prior movies were based on true stories like Gran Turismo, that certainly wasn't the case for all of them. What makes the movies on this list so great, though, is that, whether they're true stories or not, they understand both the thrills and dangers of racing perfectly.
Hustle (2022)
Hustle starring Adam Sandler | Official Trailer | Netflix

Read more