A “gripping whodunit that’s also an Edgar Allan Poe origin story,” Netflix‘s The Pale Blue Eye first comes to select theaters on December 23, 2022, while the film will begin streaming on Netflix on January 6, 2023. The Pale Blue Eye was directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Antlers) and stars Christian Bale alongside Harry Melling as Edgar Allan Poe.

Christian Bale portrays retired detective Augustus Landor, tasked with investigating a series of murders. Check out another fresh look at Bale in the film via the official poster below.

What’s particularly interesting about this project for horror fans is that Edgar Allan Poe is a central character in the story, and we recently learned that Harry Potter actor Harry Melling has been cast in the role of Poe. Melling, who recently appeared on “The Queen’s Gambit,” is perhaps best known for playing Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter film franchise.

Gillian Anderson (The Crown), Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist), Toby Jones (First Cow), Harry Lawtey (Industry), Simon McBurney (Carnival Row), Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner), Hadley Robinson (Moxie), Joey Brooks (Molly’s Game), Brennan Cook (Encounter), Gideon Glick (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus), Matt Helm (Tragedy of Macbeth), Steven Maier (The Plot Against America), Charlie Tahan (Ozark) and Robert Duvall (The Judge) also star.

“The film, written and directed by Cooper, is based on Louis Bayard’s 2006 novel of the same name—a Gothic thriller that he’s been looking to make for more than a decade. It centers on a young cadet the world would come to know as Edgar Allan Poe (Melling) and a series of murders that took place at the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1830.”

“West Point, 1830. In the early hours of a gray winter morning, a cadet is found dead. But after the body arrives at the morgue, tragedy becomes savagery when it’s discovered that the young man’s heart has been skillfully removed. Fearing irreparable damage to the fledgling military academy, its leaders turn to a local detective, Augustus Landor (Christian Bale), to solve the murder. Stymied by the cadets’ code of silence, Landor enlists the help of one of their own to pursue the case, an eccentric cadet with a disdain for the rigors of the military and a penchant for poetry—a young man named Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling).”