The trailer for Kindred teases a terrifying take on Octavia Bulter's time travel classic. First released in 1979, Butler's novel focuses on Dana James. A hopeful Black writer living in Los Angeles with her husband, Dana finds herself abruptly moving between her modern times and 1815 Maryland during the Antebellum period of the South. The book received widespread praise upon its debut, becoming a best-seller, and has been required reading for many over the course of the past several decades.

The teaser trailer for the Kindred adaptation has now been unveiled. The trailer, which confirms that all the show's eight episodes will debut December 13 via FX On Hulu, leans into the horror elements of the story and shows how it would feel to be ripped away from your life and sent back to a dangerous time with no explanation of why that was happening. You can out the unsettling teaser below.


What To Expect From The Kindred Adaptation


Following along the lines of the novel on which it is based, Kindred will see Dana (Mallori Johnson) moving between two very different worlds. She finds herself at a plantation in the 19th century, a place intimately connected to Dana and her family. A romance connects the past and present, with the clock ticking for Dana as she struggles to find the truth behind the secrets that run through her blood. Along with Johnson, who was recently seen in the Apple TV+ documentary drama WeCrashed, the adaptation also stars Ryan Kwanten, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, David Alexander Kaplan, Sophina Brown, and Sheria Irving. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, an award-winning playwright and Pulitzer Prize Finalist will serve as showrunner on the project.

Kindred will mark the first time that any of Butler's work has been adapted. The author, who began publishing in the 1970s and passed away in 2006, was among the most acclaimed sci-fi writers of her era. She'd won several awards, including making history as the first sci-fi writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship. Given her popular body of work, more adaptations will come to follow.

With that kind of legacy, there is understandably a lot of interest in terms of what one of her most memorable stories will look like when it's transformed into a prestigious drama. And although this latest teaser trailer leans into horror, Butler's saga had a lot to say about love, destiny, and the sins of the past. If the Hulu series can effectively tap into all of that, Kindred will be well worth watching.