First Look at Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest movie, ‘The Master’

It's been five long years since director Paul Thomas Anderson released "There Will Be Blood," and finally we're getting a look at his next much-discussed movie, "The Master." Though Anderson has kept a tight lip about the project, the movie is reportedly about Lancaster Dodd, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, a "charismatic intellectual" who founds a religious organization that's reportedly none too dissimilar to Scientology. Hoffman is nowhere to be seen in just-released teaser trailer, but we do get an intensely weird and weirdly intense Joaquin Phoenix as Freddie Sutton, who eventually becomes Dodd's right-hand man.

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As you can see below, the clip opens with Freddie answering what looks like a military psychologist accompanied by visuals of Dodd hanging out on the beach and fashioning racy sand sculptures. As the trailer unspools, it gets more and more unsettling, aided in no small part by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's off-kilter score. When the shrink accuses him of pulling "a knife to the throat of an officer," Dodd just laughs. When asked about his "latest episode," Dodd, shot in extreme close-up, looks twitchy and confused.

If this trailer is representative of the whole, then the film is going to easily meet the wildly high expectations of movie mavens everywhere.

"The Master," which also stars Amy Adams, Laura Dern, and Rami Malek, will hit the theaters in October 2012.