New Bad Day At The Office Trailer Shows The Film’s Entire Cast Speaking Directly To The Audience

Bad Day At The Office has a new trailer, and it is doing everything it can to sell the absurdity of its premise. The film is a first-person action movie, which means the camera never leaves the protagonist’s head. That is a trick the genre has tried before, and this trailer is not shy about leaning into the ridiculousness of it.

Director Chee Keong Cheun uses GoPros to film the chaos, following an amnesiac named Karl (John Hannah) as he wakes up in a destroyed hotel room with a splitting headache and a dead body in the bathtub. Karl has no memory of how he got there, and the film spends its runtime trying to unravel the mystery that took his memories. Alongside him is a hotel maid played by Radha Mitchell, and together they chase down a story that keeps losing its grip on reality.

The cast runs deep. Tamer Hassan, Lana Parrilla, Tim Fellingham, Roxanne McKee, Branko Tomović, and Victor Gardener round out the supporting players. It is a list that suggests ambition, even if the premise itself borders on the surreal.

Cheung’s Crazy Epic Vision

Cheun is explicit about what he wanted to achieve. “Bad Day At The Office was an intense, very physical, technically complex and thrilling creative journey,” he said in a statement. “I was fortunate to have a truly amazing cast and crew who helped me realise this crazy epic vision. I’m excited to be able to share this film with audiences and hope they will have as much fun immersing themselves and going along for the ride as we all had making it.”

The word “crazy” lands differently depending on who hears it. For Cheun, it is a badge of honour. For anyone who has seen the trailer, it reads as a warning. This is a film that wants to be talked about for its nerve, and it is willing to look ridiculous to get there.

First-Person Horror In Context

First-person horror has a long history. Some films become cult classics, like Enter The Void, while others land as one of the best films of the decade. Then there are the experiments, like Hardcore Henry, which tried to capture the popularity of first-person shooters for the Jason Statham set. Bad Day At The Office falls into that category.

Here is how the genre’s experiments break down:

• Enter The Void became a drug-fuelled cult classic
• Nickel Boys became one of the best films of the decade
• Hardcore Henry attempted to harness the popularity of first-person shooters for the Jason Statham set
• Bad Day At The Office is an experiment in first-person perspective with a mystery plot

A Film Built Around Its Own Ridiculousness

The trailer is the clearest evidence of the film’s tone. It leans into the first-person perspective, and the effect is jarring. The film seems to know it.

Cheun’s statement suggests the film was a demanding process. The technical complexity is real, and the physical intensity is something the cast and crew clearly felt.

What is clear is the ambition. Cheun is not making a modest film. He is making a film that wants to be talked about, and he is using every tool available to him to make that happen.

Bad Day At The Office opens in the UK and Ireland on October 30.

See the video the story is built around at The A.V. Club.

Bad Day At The Office · first-person cinema · John Hannah · Radha Mitchell · trailer review