There is beauty and majesty just about everywhere on the planet Earth, if we take the time to look. Huge mountains, miles of forest, and animals of every shape, size, and fur-level adorn the natural world, isolated from the ever-encroaching carbon footprint of humanity. But we also need to remember there are some places we’re just not meant to stay for too long, because they can–and will–kill us. In the trailer for the new film Arctic, Mads Mikkelsen is stuck at the frigid top of the world, and boy does it make us tense. And cold.

After a plane crash, Mikkelsen’s character is left stranded in the frozen tundra, and sadly for him, it’s not the Lambeau Field kind. His only companion is a sick and seemingly dying girl, and after a good long while of trying to contact someone for help, it seems he has to either stay in the relative safety of his makeshift camp, and watch her die before possibly dying himself; or try to find help on foot, across a treacherous, unforgiving terrain. Also there are polar bears, and if you’ve watched any BBC nature documentary in the past 10 years, you know polar bears’ food supplies are dwindling, which makes them extra hungry.

Already getting good buzz from the festival circuit, Arctic is the feature debut of director Joe Penna and his co-writer Ryan Morrison, who’ve in the past made visually sumptuous sci-fi short films. This movie is all reality, and watching Mikkelsen make the arduous journey looks to be enough to tie anyone’s stomach into knots.

Arctic hits theaters February 1.

Image: Bleecker Street

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!