At first glance the teaser imagery for director Ari Aster’s new film Midsommar seems innocent enough. The poster simply features a couple holding hands as they walk through a field of flowers towards a maypole. You could easily mistake it for a romantic film, but anyone familiar with Ari’s previous film, the spectacularly horrific Hereditary, knows that this is sure to be terrifying.
When one Instagram user commented on production company A24’s Instagram post of the poster, “Will it be spooky?” it was left to the Midsommar’s star Florence Pugh to clear things up. “Duh,” she simply responded.
Although details on the film are quite scarce at this stage, we do have a rough idea of the plot. According to a previous interview the film is a “Scandinavian folk horror”. This seems to match the IMDB listing for the film which suggests, “The story follows a young couple visiting an isolated Swedish village; over the course of their vacation, they discover that its residents participate in an eccentric set of seasonal traditions. The recent death of the main character’s parents casts a sense of dread over the proceedings.” Given that A24 have been recently teasing the film with creepy animations featuring bloodied, blindfolded people wearing robes and holding torches of fire, we think it’s safe to say that we’re in for some pagan Wicker Man-style cult activity.
After the huge success of Hereditary with audiences and critics, fans of Ari will no doubt be excited to hear that his latest is out in August. Although they might be sad to learn though that it’s most likely the director’s last horror film for a while. “[Midsommar] is the only other horror movie I have,” he revealed last year. “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.” To be honest, we’d be interested no matter what genre he’s working in.