The Most Depraved Comic of the 2000s Is Officially a Movie

Was Preacher‘s mentally challenged, self-pleasuring Jesus clone insufficient to offend your sense of decorum and taste? Did the “Herogasm” episode of The Boys feel like light entertainment? Do we have a comic book adaptation for you. Crossed, even by Garth Ennis standards, is about as dark and indulgent of reprehensible scenarios as comics get. Whatever you’re imagining, it does worse. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a movie adaptation could possibly get funded, let alone released without being banned. Yet here we are: via Bloody Disgusting, there’s a new trailer for a Crossed movie that actually exists. Its director is Rob Jabbaz, whose previous cult horror hit, the Taiwanese film The Sadness, was at least partly inspired by the Crossed comics to begin with.

Videos by ComicBook.com

Crossed, first published in 2008, is like The Walking Dead for psychopaths. In its world, the global pandemic doesn’t make zombies, but compels everyone infected to indulge in the worst human instincts that exist: torture, rape, murder, and every variant thereof, including against minors. For bonus blasphemy, the infection causes a cross-shaped mark across the faces of those who have it, who still retain human intelligence but no morals…the opposite, in fact. Prepare yourself for the unrated trailer:

It Looks Surprisingly Faithful

The trailer quickly lets you know what it’s about, with an infected man about to bash a small child with a sledgehammer; the blood that presumably ensues gushes under Ennis’ name credit, because of course it does. Images of the depraved infected and would-be survivors at times replicate comic frames, which implies a promise that the more graphic moments will also be faithfully shown. There was a time when movie chains would refuse to show this sort of film, and newspapers would refuse to run ads, but times have changed. Newspapers are dying, and theater chains need business; indie and arthouse theaters show predominantly unrated films these days, not due to content, but due to international films not needing to submit to the MPAA, indies not affording it, and theaters not caring.

We live in a world where Terrifier 2 and Terrifier 3 broke box-office records for unrated movies, and now Art the Clown T-shirts and toys are available in most Walmarts across America, if they aren’t already sold out. Could we be seeing giant Home Depot animatronic figures of the Crossed next year around this time? It’s hard to say absolutely not. Garth Ennis is clearly the hot comics writer to adapt right now, though usually for TV and streaming rather than movies. Crossed as a comic has spawned numerous spinoffs and sequels, with writers like Alan Moore, Simon Spurrier and Kieron Gillen contributing.

The official movie synopsis reads, “Stan and Cindy are the leaders of a group of strangers thrown together as they attempt to escape northward away from the infected known as the Crossed. In this world, those affected by a mysterious disease appear to have a cross on their foreheads and follow their worst impulses. They’re the equivalent of zombies, but a lot meaner and whole lot more psychotic.” As the infection spreads, world leaders who contract it launch nuclear bombs, but there are different levels of the Crossed, from the totally feral to the more cleverly sadistic. Redeeming qualities are absent in them, though there is some indication that horse tranquilizers can beat back the symptoms just a bit.

Are you up for live-action Ennis at his most extreme? Cross into our comments and bless us with your thoughts.

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