Hereditary’s Ari Aster & A24 Team Up For New Nightmare

Midsommar is the new horror film from acclaimed director Ari Aster. It’s hot on the heels of the terrific Hereditary which was one of the better films released in 2018. Despite its success, the film was all but ignored during Oscars season.

Midsommar stars Florence Pugh (Fighting With My Family), Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgran, Archie Madekwe, Ellora Torchia, and BAFTA award winner Will Poulter.

Here’s the trailer:

The trailer shows Pugh’s character as she arrives at a “crazy nine-day festival that happens every ninety years” in Sweden.

The people attending the festival are told they can’t speak or move, in aid of “breaking down their defences”. We then see a range of creepy and bizarre shots, from a deformed dude to Pugh’s character running for her life.

The synopsis is short and sweet:

“Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor will play a couple that travels to Sweden to visit their friend’s rural hometown for its fabled mid-summer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.”

The poster for the movie has this crucifix-looking object, but I reckon Midsommar already looks more The Wicker Man than The Exorcist.

Here’s the poster:

It’s suggested that Midsommar will be just as unsettling and strange as Hereditary. There’s even an equivalent to Hereditary’s cluck noise in a repeated exhale sound!

Not much else is divulged, although no doubt it’s fair to say that the unsuspecting couple are not going to get the Glastonbury experience they might be hoping for.

Midsommar is released in UK cinemas on August 16, 2019.