HEREDITARY Director Ari Aster's New Horror Film MIDSOMMAR Gets a Promo Tease
Hereditary was an absolutely terrifying and completely jacked-up horror movie. For those of you who enjoyed the film, you’ll be happy to learn that director Ari Aster is developing a new horror film called Midsommar.
A24 has released a promo teaser for the film today, and while it doesn’t offer any actual footage from the film, it does tease the tone. It’s just an animated visual of a group of young girls dancing around a maypole with some kind of cult-like symbol. Check it out below:
💐🌷🌸🌺🌻☀️SOMMAR 2019 pic.twitter.com/OtDGZ3y5eT
— A24 (@A24) February 26, 2019
The girls dancing around the maypole is part of Seden’s Midsummer’s Eve festivities. For those of you not familiar with Midsummer:
Midsummer was considered to be a time of magic, and anything to do with nature was thought to have a special power. Gathering flowers to weave into wreaths and crowns was a way to harness nature’s magic to ensure good health throughout the year. Even though most people these days probably are unaware of the magical origins of the tradition, weaving crowns of flowers is still a major part of any Midsummer observance.
I’m sure you can imagine all the different ways that this can be implemented in a creepy-ass horror movie. The story for the film is said to follow a couple who 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.”
Sounds like a good time! The director explained that the horror movie is a “Scandinavian folk horror” story. In an interview with Film Comment, the filmmaker also said that the film is “an apocalyptic breakup movie,” and explained that the “recent death of the main character’s parents casts a sense of dread over the proceedings.”
As far as the cast goes, it includes Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, and Florence Pugh. As someone who liked Hereditary, I’m very much looking forward to seeing how this new film of Aster’s turns out!
Midsommar will be released in theaters on August 9, 2019.