Star Jack Reynor calls his new horror movie ‘Midsommar’ a cross between ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and the 1973 horror movie ‘The Wicker Man’ about a Scottish pagan cult that periodically burned visitors alive. In ‘Midsommar’, Reynor and Florence Pugh play Christian and Dani, an American couple on the rocks, who journey to Scandinavia with their friends Mark (Will Poulter), Josh (William Jackson Harper), and Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), “the latter of whom has invited them to visit his remote village in Sweden.”
Says Reynor:
“’The Wicker Man’, that’s kind of a cult you wouldn’t mind being a part of, but these guys, in ‘Midsommar’, they’re really f—ing creepy dudes… They’re a really weird, culty kind of commune. Everybody’s all dressed in white, they have strange kinds of social cliques.”
Pugh added:
“Dani has had a loss, [and] by the time that the film starts, she’s in the middle of a relationship that is on its way out. When we meet her, she’s just about to suffer some more. So it’s pretty much rock bottom with her!… They’re in the middle of their holiday, and a few of them are over it, and I’m getting inspired to look around and figure things out.”
That might not be such a good idea!
According to director Ari Aster, who helmed last year’s acclaimed ‘Hereditary’, “It is very safe to say that horrors ensue,” as the town is celebrating “a particularly special iteration of” the festival of Midsummer, which includes something called “The Last Supper.”
Aster added:
“The film is definitely mining the same vein as ‘Wicker Man’ was working, 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. It’s not a million miles away from something like ‘Alice in Wonderland’. It’s a psychedelic film. But there are no solid [comparisons] that I can hand you. I’m hoping that the film feels pretty singular and is a trip.”
We’ll find out, as ‘Midsommar’ arrives, fittingly, in midsummer on July 3. Will you be booking this trip?
Source: Entertainment Weekly
