It was a little over a year ago that we first reported on Let Me In director Matt Reeves becoming attached to a remake of Ray Nelson’s paranoia-fuelled sci-fi short story Eight O’Clock In The Morning, which provided the source material for John Carpenter’s cult aliens-among-us thriller They Live. While not much appears to have happened with Reeves’ film yet, someone has beaten him to it – in spirit, if not actual origin – as the trailer for Branded demonstrates. Check it out below.

Branded, written and directed by Jamie Bradshaw and Alexander Doulerain, posits a near-future dystopia where corporate brands have well and truly taken over (next Tuesday, then?) The populace is peppered with messages chock full of subliminal signals.

Among those helping to pour the content into our willing consumer brains is ad executive Misha Galkin (Ed Stoppard). But a tragic accident on one of his commercial shoots sends his career into a tailspin and leads him to retreat from the world. When he returns, the scales drop from his eyes and he’s plagues by visions of weird creatures that can directly influence our thoughts. And there’s an even more sinister plan at work. But can he save us from our own appetites? The cast also features Leelee Sobieski, Max von Sydow and Jeffrey Tambor.

With a definite feel of trippy, almost Terry Gilliam-esque style in the effects sequences on display, this could be something fun, provided the message doesn’t get too heavy handed and it avoids spiralling down into something better suited to Kim’s Video Dungeon. After hitting Russian screens first, it’s set to arrive in the US on September 7, but we’ll have to wait and see if it gets picked up for UK release. Meanwhile, why not enjoy the 97 – count ‘em! – QR codes embedded in the trailer. Way to embrace the irony, marketers!