The Guillermo del Toro-directed crime thriller, filmed in Buffalo, hits theaters today. The film features some A-list Hollywood actors - Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett, along with Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, and David Strathairn. The film, which is based on the 1946 novel 'Nightmare Alley' by William Lindsay Gresham, combines the carny life, manipulation, power and some of the worst traits of human nature,

An extraordinary description of a freak-show geek alcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowd's gleeful disgust and derision going about his work at a county fair. Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. There's no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him. ~IMDb

The movie was filmed primarily in Buffalo last year from September 16 to December 11, 2020. Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario were also used as filming locations. Part of the reason that Buffalo was chosen for the film is because Del Toro was looking for a city with character,

"I wanted to find a city that was really interesting to visit for an audience, that was not a city they were overtly familiar with." ~Wikipedia

The most ironic thing about him choosing Buffalo is that they actually had to bring in fake snow...in a city where blizzards, polar vortexes, and Nor'Easters are the norm!

The National Board of Review and American Film Institute named it one of the best films of 2021.

I'm looking forward to checking it out. I love crime thrillers, so it's right up my (nightmare) alley 😂

Credit: SearchlightPictures via Youtube

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