Watch The Harrowing First Trailer For 'The Stanford Prison Experiment'

It’s one of the most notorious moments in American academic history, where what began as a scientific experiment, as a quest for knowledge, crossed a line and became something sinister and, ultimately, infamous. It’s one of those real-life situations that sounds stranger than fiction, and now the Stanford Prison Experiment is the subject of a new movie, interestingly enough titled The Stanford Prison Experiment. After premiering at Sundance, the film is set for release, and this new trailer shows just how harrowing and disturbing a time we’re in for.

The story goes, in 1971, Stanford professor and researcher Dr. Philip Zimbardo took 24 male undergraduate students and designated them as either inmate or guard in a simulated prison situation. They sat back to see what would happen as the young men assumed their roles and how the power dynamics and institutionalized roles affected their behavior. What they got went far beyond expectations as the guards started brutalizing their prisoners and the situation spiraled completely out of control.

Being called a tense psychological thriller, The Stanford Prison Experiment has a great cast that includes  Billy Crudup, Ezra Miller, Tye Sheridan, Olivia Thirlby, Michael Anganaro, Logan Miller, Thomas Mann, Keir Gilchrist, Johnny Simmons, Moises Arias, Jack Kilmer,Chris Sheffield, Ki Hong Lee, and James Frecheville. The film hits theaters on July 17 and VOD a week later on July 24. Check out the trailer below.