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Helen Mirren runs a haunted mansion in new 'Winchester' trailer

Helen Mirren is known for many things but horror cinema isn’t one of them. That’ll change this February, however, when she headlines Winchester as Sarah Winchester, the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune. It’s an unconventional role for the Academy Award-winning actress, and it’ll come in what appears to be an unconventional film, as it focuses on Winchester’s attempts to convince Jason Clarke’s doctor and her own niece that her house is haunted by ghosts and that these evil spirits are only being prevented from infiltrating the world by her home, which she’s constructed as an immense supernatural labyrinth prison.

With a synopsis like that, it’s no surprise that the film’s latest trailer is more than a bit off-the-wall. More importantly, however, it feels quite spoiler-y, as the promo not only lays out the project’s basic premise, but also shows quite a bit of the action in store for genre audiences. For those who feel like they may have already seen a similar work in the past, they’re not imagining things Stephen King’s Rose Red, which was adapted as a TV miniseries for ABC in 2002, was partly inspired by the legend of Sarah Winchester. Nonetheless, this feature from the Spierig brothers (Jigsaw, Predestination) can lay claim to some sort of authenticity on the subject, given that it was shot on location at San Jose, Calif.’s enormous Winchester Mystery House.

Certainly, Mirren looks like she’s fully committed herself to the part of the Winchester clan’s crazy heiress. To see her in full horror-movie mode, check out the trailer above.

Winchester arrives in theaters on Feb. 2.

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