Check Out The Creepy Trailer For John Darnielle’s New Book

An exclusive look at the book trailer for Universal Harvester, The Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle's second novel.

DL Andersoni

The Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle has a second novel coming out this month, called Universal Harvester — one of the most anticipated books of 2017. Universal Harvester takes place in a small Iowa town in the late 1990s, where disturbing home video footage begins to show up spliced into VHS cassettes at the local video store.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Things get even more interesting when the video store’s owner recognizes a barn in the footage as a farmhouse in a nearby town.

So it's no surprise that the book's trailer is thoroughly unsettling to watch, too. The video features scenes from what appears to be rural Iowa, as well as eerie home video footage and static screens.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Darnielle can be heard reading from Universal Harvester alongside original music composed by Buttonwood Agreement (Joaquin Spengemann and Darnielle). The overall effect is pretty chilling.

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

Darnielle's publisher provided BuzzFeed with the full trailer:

youtube.com

The director of the trailer, Andrew Bruntel, also directed the Mountain Goats video for "This Year" in 2005.

Darnielle's first novel, Wolf in White Van, was one of the best fiction books of 2014. You can also read an essay by him here.

Universal Harvester will be out in stores on Feb. 7.