Black Mass trailer: Johnny Depp is terrifying as Whitey Bulger in the first look at new thriller

There’s a lesson to be learned from this Black Mass trailer: never ever give out the family recipe. This based-on-real-events drama, directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart), isn’t in theaters until Sept 18, but this first clip displays a fully transformed Johnny Depp as Boston gangster Whitey Bulger in action for the first time. And he is terrifying.

Whitey toys with one of his cronies (David Harbour) at dinner, pressing him to give up the “family secret” to his delicious steak. But when Whitey learns the answer (garlic and soy sauce!), the air suddenly goes out of the room. As the tension and menace grows at the table, we see snippets of some of the rest of the film—including glimpses of co-stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Joel Edgerton—and a lot of Whitey Bulger being ruthless and violent.

“Whitey could be charming and deadly,” Copper tells EW. “Whitey Bulger’s attorney stopped by the set a couple of times and told me that Johnny not only looks like Whitey, he sounds like him and moves like him too. His charm. His cunning. Johnny captured all of that.”

Check out the trailer below: