Ari Arster, the director of 2018’s best horror movie (and one of the year’s best movies overall) Hereditary, returns with his second full-length feature, Midsommar. There’s no clicking noises; instead, the “apocalyptic breakup movie” takes place during a seemingly idyllic mid-summer festival in Sweden, where all the sunshine and smiles masks something much darker. (Does the teaser trailer above end with people screaming? You better believe it.)
You might even say Midsommar looks like a… cult classic.
But you shouldn’t say that, because that’s terrible. Instead, I’ll let Arster explain why he might be done with horror after Midsommar: “That is the only other horror movie I have. And I’m pretty sure that’s going to be it for a long time. I love the genre, I consider myself a genre filmmaker in that I want to play in every genre. I would love to make a musical. I have 10 other scripts that I’ve written that I want to make and there are other things I have. I’m writing a sci-fi film and there are at least four or five movies that I have ready to go that I am excited about making that I’d like to do in succession.” Here’s the plot synopsis.
A couple’s vacation to a Swedish village takes a sinister turn when the insular townspeople invite them into a series of rituals that render their pastoral paradise increasingly unnerving, in this dread-soaked and viscerally disquieting psychological thriller.
Midsommar, which stars Florence Pugh, Jack Raynor, Will Poulter, and William Jackson Harper (Chidi from The Good Place!) opens on August 9.
Feast your eyes… @AriAster’s #Midsommar is coming 🌞☀️🌼🌻🎊🎉 pic.twitter.com/2ENd9gv85z
— A24 (@A24) February 27, 2019
