Fans of the Biblical Jonah hate to hear it, but being eaten by a whale can be detrimental to one’s health. It’s a position that the teaser for the upcoming underwater thriller Whalefall, which sets up the movie in one two-minute gulp, takes quite seriously. The movie follows Jay (Austin Abrams, best known as Weapons’ breakout tweaker), the son of a man (Josh Brolin) who died at sea and was never seen again. SCUBA diving in search of his father’s remains, Jay finds himself face-to-face with a massive sperm whale that inevitably swallows the young diver. That’s where the movie begins because much of Whalefall is spent with Jay inside said belly as he plots an escape before his oxygen runs out. For the record, whales do have anuses, so that’s one possible exit strategy. Whalefall joins a recent uptick in seabeast movies from the last few years, including The Meg 2 and this year’s Deep Water—to say nothing of the recent two Tulkun-heavy Avatar movies. However, this one has the edge by situating itself in the last place anyone would want to be: A whale’s stomach. It’s not an entirely fantastical situation. In the 1890s, for instance, James Bartley was swallowed by a sperm whale and reportedly survived for 15 hours before being discovered after the whale was killed by harpooners. Though the veracity of the story has been called into question many times since, being swallowed by a whale is still considered inadvisable by most doctors. Whalefall opens in theaters on October 16, 2026.