‘Hereditary’ Director Ari Aster’s Next Movie Will Be an Apocalyptic Psychedelic Folk Horror
Ever since his break-out hit with last year’s Hereditary, we’ve been eager for any news we can find on Ari Aster’s upcoming project Midsommar. The film, whose artwork and trailer give off serious Wickerman vibes, has been described by the director, tantalisingly, as a “post apocalyptic breakup movie” and a “Scandinavian folk horror film”. In a recent interview with EW, Aster dropped some hints about his forthcoming nightmare.
Despite its obvious debt to 1970s folk horror, however, fans expecting a simple rehash of old tropes will find that Midsommar has a flavour all of its own.
“The film is definitely mining the same vein as Wickerman was working,” said Aster, “but as a piece of folk-horror, it’s pretty irreverent in that it doesn’t really stay comfortably on that route.”
“That’s why I’m making sure to describe it as a fairytale,” he continues. “It’s not a million miles away from something like Alice in Wonderland. It’s a psychedelic film. It definitely moves very solidly into psychedelia and so it’s not a million miles away from something like A Field in England in that respect. But there are no solid [comparisons] that I can hand you.”
Midsommar will star Jack Reynor, Will Poulter and Florence Pugh with Vilhem Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Ellora Torchia and Archie Madekwe.
“Pugh and 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.”
A24 will release Midsommar on July 3rd.
Check out the teaser trailer below: