Hereditary Director’s Midsommar Gets New Poster and Trailer

Horror fans were delivered multiple exciting events in 2018, such as the return of the Halloween franchise with many of the core members of the cast and crew participating while director Luca Guadagnino delivered a captivating reimagining of the Italian classic Suspiria. In addition to seeing familiar stories unfold on the big screen, director Ari Aster delivered audiences one of the most compelling and disturbing films of the year with Hereditary, focusing on a family coping with the loss of a family member with a supernatural twist. The director’s new film, Midsommar, has gotten a new trailer and poster ahead of its July 3rd release.

Midsommar follows a teenage guy (Jack Reynor) who wants to break up with his girlfriend (Florence Pugh), however, holds off after a personal tragedy. This emotional build-up happens to be occurring as both are headed to a crazy nine-day festival, which only happens every 90 years, a Swedish-puritan type celebration of love and glee — with some horrific results.

In addition to Reynor and Pugh, Midsommar stars Will Poulter, Vilhem Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Ellora Torchia, and Archie Madekwe.

Both Hereditary and Midsommar have clear cult themes and, while Aster admits there might be some thematic similarities, fans shouldn’t consider his new film a continuation of his debut.

“There’s no Paimon involved,” Aster shared with Fandango. “But I would say that the film is something of a companion to Hereditary, although the similarities didn’t really occur to me until we were on set. And thematic ties became apparent to me. But nothing so overt as Paimon worshipping.”

The mysterious marketing for the film has left audiences with a lot of questions, though Aster offered hints of what to expect of the narrative.

“We’re drawing a lot from folklore,” the director admitted. “And we’re drawing from Swedish tradition. And we’re drawing from tall tales. I was drawing a lot of inspiration from different anthropological studies. Not all of them were tied specifically to Sweden, but many were broadly European. Then there’s a lot of invention happening, as well. It’s a melange.”

He added, “All the runic stuff is pulling from runic alphabet, but then we also created something of a language for these people, and then there’s a lot of symbolism that we created alongside the found symbolism. Then there is a lot of art that we kind of brought in ourselves that we made.”

Despite the similarities between the two films, Aster offered a disclaimer for those viewers who are expecting an experience like Hereditary.

“Now I’m fully aware of expectations, and the film is not Hereditary,” Aster clarified. “It’s really leaning more on suspense than it is scares. In some ways, it’s more surreal. I would say Hereditary absolutely was a horror film, unabashedly, and this film is, I am very careful to call it an adult fairy tale. That’s what this is. This is an adult contemporary fairy tale.”

Check out Midsommar in theaters on July 3rd.

Are you looking forward to checking out the new film? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!