It’s that time of year again — the weather outside is frightful, and the best cure we can think of is cozying up with a snowbound murder mystery. Fortunately, Scott Cooper’s new film The Pale Blue Eye is just the ticket. What’s it about? Well, we’re glad you asked. After a young West Point cadet turns up murdered and brutally disembowled, the school’s administrators turn to grizzled detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) to solve the case — a case that he tries to crack with a young cadet (and future world-famous writer) named Edgar Allan Poe. Want to know more? Why not check out the opening minutes of The Pale Blue Eye below, only on Tudum.

Writer-director Cooper and Bale wanted the opening moments of the film to immediately set its bone-chilling tone. “We meet our protagonist, Augustus Landor, who is the legendary constable who will discreetly investigate these murders,” Cooper tells Tudum. “I wanted to find a man who is alone and is lonely. This is a man who operates on the margins of society.”

Adds Bale, “He’s a hard-boiled detective. He’s become sort of cynical after years of dealing with criminals in an era when much of the detective work came down to force of personality. But [he’s] somebody who certainly seems to have left those days behind, wants a quiet life and has retired — a definite loner.”

Of course, he won’t stay that way for long. Soon, a pair of West Point officers (Simon McBurney and Timothy Spall) appear to offer him the gruesome case that will consume Landor’s life. Not featured in the film’s introduction is Landor’s meeting with the young Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling), who will become his confidant and eccentric sidekick in the investigation. The film’s fictional depiction of Poe and Landor’s relationship offered Cooper the window into the tale he was looking for. In November, he told Tudum that he saw the film as “a father-and-son love story — a kinship between two men who are loners.”

Bale agrees. “[Landor] is very surprised to find himself still interested in people and having his eyes opened by a much younger, less life-weary personality, who comes to actually be a part of the defining moment of his life,” he says. “You know, Landor thought that those stories were all behind him.” 

In reality, at least one more story lies ahead for Landor — and you, with The Pale Blue Eye currently in theaters for a limited release and then debuting on Netflix on Jan. 6. Until then, you can watch and rewatch the opening minutes, keeping an eye out for clues. “This is a film that I think rewards careful viewing,” Cooper says. Even in its very first moments.

The Pale Blue Eye is written and directed by Cooper, based on the novel by Louis Bayard. Alongside Bale and Melling, it stars Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton and Robert Duvall.