You know what’s not scary? Sunshine. Beautiful shots of nature. Lovely summer festivals where people put flowers in their hair and dance around in circle. You know what’s about to be really, really scary? All of that, as seen in the new teaser trailer for Ari Aster’s new horror film, Midsommar.
The film follows an unnamed woman, played Florence Pugh, joining her boyfriend on a trip to Sweden to partake in a mid-summer festival that happens once every 90 years. When they all first arrive, everything seems all chill and cute, what with the people in the gorgeous white clothes and the flower crowns. However, things start to get ominous with bloody rituals, weird breathing techniques, dissecting a bear, and some messed up visages.
Aster’s Hereditary made waves with its terrifying depiction of a family in crisis, so with an even larger cast and environment, who knows the kind of creepiness he can fit in. Besides Pugh, we have William Jackson Harper of The Good Place fame, Will Poulter from Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, and Swedish actress Julia Ragnarsson.
People are already buzzing about how scary the film will be, both on social media and in headlines. Aster has made a big splash, not just through his previous work but the careful choice of aesthetics. The trailer really gives you vibes of the original The Wicker Man (no, not the Nicolas Cage version), of a hippie community with a dark secret. He seems to be interested in disfigurements, either forced or natural, and cult ritual and worship, two carryovers from Hereditary that we can see in the trailer. What other themes the two will share we’ll just have to wait to see, though we won’t have to wait long…
Midsommar arrives in theaters on August 9, 2019.
