Mindhunter Season 2 Teaser Cranks Up The Creepiness

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Warning: Mindhunter wants to scare your face off.

Another teaser for the second season of the hit Netflix show has been released, and as chock full of suspense and creepiness as it is, the new episodes look to be leaning hard into the horror elements of the show's premise.

Mindhunter centers on FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), who — along with psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) — are among the first law enforcement officials to develop the art of serial killer profiling in the 1970s. Using in-depth interviews with incarcerated criminals, they attempt to establish patterns, gain insight into the psyches of their subjects, and apply their research to the pursuit of active murderers.

Ford and Tench are based on real-life agents John E. Douglas and Robert Ressler, who blazed a similar path and whose techniques became the basis for the Bureau's method of profiling. (They also literally wrote the book on the subject.) As such, the first season saw them encountering a slew of real-world serial killers, including Monte Rissell (Sam Strike), Jerry Brudos (Happy Anderson), and the infamous "Co-Ed Killer," Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton).

Season 2 moves the action to Atlanta and the time period to 1979-1981, when a terrible rash of child murders gripped the city. The new spot clues us in that Kemper and more real-world baddies will come into play, that one unfortunate woman should have locked her doors, and that this season is going to contain moments that will make you want to jump right the heck out of your skin.

The spot begins with Holden and Ford interviewing Kemper in his cell, as the murderer taunts them, "Have you got somebody, Holden? Someone you can't catch?" Intercut with a sequence of shots showing a slowly unfurling ink blot reminiscent of a Rorschach test, we see the above-mentioned woman returning from the grocery store, and she's returned to several times throughout the short trailer. She hears a noise in another room; she tentatively approaches a bathroom door which we see to be secured by some rope on the other side; she observes the door jiggling, but inexplicably decides to go in anyway.

We also get shots of several disturbing images interspersed with this sequence: Holden and Ford examining a cut telephone line; a picture of a bound pair of hands; a young boy being stalked by someone in a car; a man (who is almost certainly Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer) wearing a very creepy porcelain doll mask, creeping through a room. We also get glimpses of some of the new season's characters, including Charles Manson (portrayed by Aussie actor Damon Herriman, playing the same role he held down in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam."

Throughout, we hear Kemper's narration. "This person you're after, he has an overwhelming fantasy life," he says. "Fantasies of what he's done, what he wants to do. His dreams will consume him, until the real world won't even compare." Here, the ink blot resolves into a logo featuring the cast and an image of a frightened little boy.

"How do we catch a fantasy, Ed?" Tench is heard asking, to which the killer replies, "If he's any good, you can't." We then see the hapless woman entering the bathroom and making a shocking discovery... although, of course, we don't see what it. 

Netflix has definitely got us on the hook for this one. The first season of Mindhunter was excellent, compelling television shot through with tension and terror, and judging from this spot, season 2 will bring back all of those qualities in spades. 

New cast members this season include Albert Jones (The Following), Stacey Roca (Shameless), Michael Cerveris (Ant-Man and the Wasp), Lauren Glazier (Red Sparrow),and Sierra McClain (Empire). Mindhunter's nine-episode second season premieres on Netflix on August 16.