Among recent hits for horror amidst the genre’s continued renaissance is Ari Aster’s 2018 feature-film debut Hereditary. The unsettling flick centered on family tragedy will soon be followed up by Midsommar, a movie that visually brings the brightness way up as blue skies and blonde-haired women in bright white summer dresses and flower crowns frolic through a Swedish village. Don’t let the daylight fool you, Midsommar looks very much like an Aster film – just take a look at the new spine-chilling trailer:
Okay, so his looks terrifying. The new trailer from A24 gives us a bit of an idea of the film’s set up. Midsommar will follow Dani and Christian, a young couple played by Fighting With My Family’s Florence Pugh and Sing Street’s Jack Reynor who are close to breaking up. Following a personal struggle Dani is going through right before Christian’s planned bro trip with some friends to Sweden, he invites her along, much to their detest.
The group go on a week trip to a village in Sweden for a summer festival that’s described to have ceremonies and fun dress up… but it’s no Coachella.
The friends seem to have found themselves in some sort of ancient cult of sorts who reject Dani from leaving when she senses something off about the festival. It’s always daylight at the site, and they seem to witness some gruesome ceremonies during a once in a century ritual.
The trailer ends with some unnerving moments featuring the dissection of a bear, hints of violence, intense chanting and Dani standing up among the group as a voiceover says “I was most excited for you to come”. Will we witness a starling transformation from Dani (potentially reminiscent of the ending of Hereditary?) We’ll just have to wait and see.
Ari Aster has previously described Midsommar as “a breakup movie, in the same way that Heredity was a family tragedy”. So perhaps the film will explore the couple’s troubles through the lens of the filmmaker’s specific brand of terror. He has also called it “Wizard of Oz for perverts” so now I’m really confused about what to expect from this movie.
There’s something special about the marketing of Ari Aster’s films because it establishes tone and intrigue, but doesn’t give enough away for audiences to be able to distinguish the storyline they are in for. While Hereditary was almost exclusively made up of dark hues begging to be watched under dim lights (like a Game of Thrones episode), one scary aspect of Midsommar is how the events will take place exclusively in broad daylight.
Midsommar has an impressive cast led by Florence Pugh, who was recently cast alongside Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow. Will Poulter from We’re The Millers and Netflix’s Bandersnatch and William Jackson Harper, best known as Chidi in The Good Place also will be featured in the film. Midsommar hits theaters on July 3.
