When the first trailer for Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's Damsel dropped a few months ago, the footage painted the upcoming Netflix movie as a dark fantasy film with impressive scale and a big, active, fire-breathing dragon... but horror fans will find themselves picking up on a different vibe from the latest exciting look at the film. It seems that the director's history in the genre (28 Weeks Later, Intruders) is very much in play with his latest feature, as the new Damsel trailer makes it look like Millie Bobby Brown is going to walk away from the action as a full-fledged final girl.
Furthering her relationship with Netflix as we await the final season of Stranger Things and another Enola Holmes sequel, Millie Bobby Brown stars in Damsel as Elodie, a young woman who is invited to live a fantasy life by getting married to a wealthy prince. Things quickly go horribly wrong, however, when Elodie learns that she is not meant to be a princess but instead a sacrifice. Like many before her, she is thrown into a pit to be devoured by a fire-breathing dragon, but the young woman evidently isn't the type to just cry and die.
As far as confronting gender stereotypes in fairy tales goes, this feature is clearly going for something very different than Le-Van Kiet's The Princess starring Joey King (which was released as a Hulu exclusive in the summer of 2022). When you think about it, the plot actually shares a lot in common with Radio Silence's Ready Of Not – only instead of playing homicidal hide and seek with a wealthy family that has made a deal with the devil, Millie Bobby Brown's Elodie has to battle a dragon because of a royal family repaying "an ancient debt" (per the movie's official description). It's obviously a very different aesthetic – fans won't recall any dragons in Ready Or Not – and it's unclear if Damsel is going to have a similar wry sense of humor. What we've seen from the film doesn't suggest that it will.
In addition to Brown, Damsel sports a spectacular supporting cast that includes Robin Wright, Nick Robinson, Ray Winstone, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Brooke Carter, and Angela Bassett. Dan Mazeau, who co-wrote the 2023 blockbuster Fast X, wrote the original screenplay.
It won't be long now until audiences get to see the exciting adventure that the film has in store, as it is now less than a month away from being available to stream. Netflix subscribers will find it available with their account starting on March 8. To learn about all of the other scary movies that are on the way in the coming weeks and months, be sure to check out our Upcoming Horror Movies guide.
