Daniel Radcliffe’s Dead-ish Body Saves the Day in Bizarre ‘Swiss Army Man’ Trailer

Among the hottest topics of conversation at Sundance back in January was a picture by the name of Swiss Army Man, or as it was commonly referred to, “the farting corpse movie.” Described by Variety as “Cast Away meets Weekend at Bernie’s as directed my Michel Gondry,” the singularly weird picture casts Paul Dano as Hank, a man marooned on a desert island who has officially exhausted all his options for escape and return to civilization. Just as he’s about to officially concede his efforts with suicide, he notices the water-logged, pallid corpse of Manny (Daniel Radcliffe). But this is no ordinary water-logged, pallid corpse — it is a magical water-logged, pallid corpse. It farts when Hank pokes at it, and he becomes convinced it may not be fully deceased.

As actor-driven two-handers go, this one definitely has one of the stranger premises in recent memory. The trailer leaves it unclear whether this is all happening in Hank’s mind, but Manny’s carcass proves to have a variety of life-saving uses, from squirting jets of water to shooting handy grappling hooks. The newly unveiled trailer will hopefully drum up a goodly amount of buzz for this curious indie before its June 17 premiere, in support of what has been hailed as a unique and genuinely original vision. Directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (music-video vets for the Shins, Passion Pit, and Chromeo) earned quite a bit of praise for their oddball film; our own Erin Whitney had her reservations about all the fart jokers, of which there are many, but ultimately celebrated the film in her Sundance review, writing “...the DANIELS’ film uses body parts as plot devices that are a goofy and creative commentary on dormant masculinity, mortality and love.”

So this June, have some wholesome summer fun by retreating from the sun into an aggressively air-conditioned, dark theater so you may watch a corpse with a boner fart its way to freedom.