My most anticipated film of 2008 — if director John R. Hand finishes it this year, then it’ll be my most anticipated of 2009 — is Hand’s follow-up to his feature debut, Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare. This new one is called Scars of Youth and I already featured some stills from the film a few months ago. But, above is the first creepy trailer, cut together while Hand is still shooting footage. I was certainly interested in the film before, but after watching this, yeah it shot into my most anticipated slot.

The film looks much more ambitious than Frankensteins, but with some of the familiar tropes Hand used so well in his first film, especially the dark, swirling ambient soundtrack that adds a whole deeper dimension to the proceedings. Here’s the synopsis:

In a post-apocalyptic world 200 years in the future, society has broken down into fragmented groups who now dwell within a tangled wood, completely unaware of any civilization that exists beyond and constantly monitored by someone — or something. In this world, a young man living in a decaying wreck of a cabin struggles to come to terms with his bleak existence while trying to save his mother from the grip of a strange black fluid that seems to prolong life, but at the same time leaves its user in a drug-like haze and causes scar-like tissue to cover their bodies.

Oh yeah, I can’t wait. You can learn more at the film’s official website and at Hand’s blog, which has a ton of movie stills.