Movies
New Trailer Invites You to the Nightmarish ‘Midsommar’ Celebration
Hereditary director Ari Aster is back this sommar with his next foray into horror, Midsommar, which he has recently described as a “post-apocalyptic breakup movie” and a “Scandinavian folk horror film.”
A24 shares this brand new trailer that opens up the doors to the cult, which celebrates Midsommar every 90 years. The footage looks like a brash remix of Eli Roth’s Hostel and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man in which a troubled relationship is tested when the duo’s friend delivers them to the Midsommar cult. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.
One thing that immediately stands out is Florence Pugh‘s performance, which already looks primed to stand against that of Toni Collette in Hereditary. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Aster gets the best out of his actors.
The biggest danger comes in shooting horror in the daylight, which is boasted in the synopsis: “Midsommar is a dread-soaked cinematic fairytale where a world of darkness unfolds in broad daylight.” I’ll bow to Aster if he can deliver terrifying horror under the sun.
Jack Reynor stars as Pugh’s boyfriend with Will Poulter, Vilhem Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Ellora Torchia and Archie Madekwe also appearing.
The festivities begin on July 3.
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
You must be logged in to post a comment.