Midsommar Trailer From Hereditary Director Teases a Sunlit Nightmare
Writer/director Ari Aster burst onto the scene with last year’s insanely scary Hereditary. What that film did for miniatures and sticking your head out of car windows to get some air, his new film Midsommar will likely do for summer festivals. The first trailer is here and it delivers the kind of thrills you’d expect from Aster, but in an entirely different setting and without the advantage of being able to hide his horrors in darkness. Midsommar will make us afraid of bucolic settings and sunlight, as well as vintage dresses and whatever amber liquid they’re drinking. Come for the dancing and period garb, stay for the disemboweling!
Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor star as Dani and Christian, an American couple who venture to Sweden for a special 9-day festival that only occurs every 90 years. Who could resist such a once-in-a-lifetime event? The first thing Hereditary fans will notice is how Aster has stepped into the light. Whereas his debut film was all shadows, Midsommar is absolutely bathed in sunshine. You’ll see a few very brief flashes later in the trailer that are straight up disturbing, but mostly this first look is setting up a sunlit atmosphere of waking nightmares. By the time Dani and Christian realize something is amiss in this increasingly unsettling Sweden festival, it appears its too late for them to escape.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Dani and Christian are a young American couple with a relationship on the brink of falling apart. But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani invites herself to join Christian and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. What begins as a carefree summer holiday in a land of eternal sunlight takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers invite their guests to partake in festivities that render the pastoral paradise increasingly unnerving and viscerally disturbing. From the visionary mind of Ari Aster comes a dread-soaked cinematic fairytale where a world of darkness unfolds in broad daylight.
Check out the deliciously creep trailer here. Midsommar opens on July 3, 2019:
Featured image: Midsommar Courtesy: A24
