Midsommar Will Be ‘a Wizard of Oz for Perverts,’ Says Director Ari Aster

Photo: A24

Writer-director Ari Aster specializes in making horror movies that send us all to therapy. Last year, he ruined our ability to enjoy road trips with Hereditary’s car-decapitation scene. This summer, he’ll be single-handedly dismantling festival culture with Midsommar.

Thanks to that spooky but sparse trailer, we know only a few details about Aster’s follow-up: It’s “Scandinavian folk horror” focusing on a “pagan cult”; it stars Florence Pugh and Will Poulter; and it involves a bear with exposed intestines. So when Vulture caught up with Aster on the red carpet at last night’s Metrograph Anniversary Party, we asked him for more information.

“It’s a breakup movie, in the same way that Hereditary is a family tragedy,” Aster shared. “It’s less overtly a horror movie, but it’s still working in that same space. It’s very macabre. But people shouldn’t go in expecting Hereditary.” When asked what he’d liken Midsommar to, if not Hereditary, Aster paused for a full minute. “Is it your Mamma Mia?” we asked. “Yeah, sure, I’d say so,” he laughed. “It’s a Wizard of Oz for perverts.”

He also agreed that Toni Collette should have won an Oscar for her star turn in Hereditary as a demon-possessed dollhouse auteur. “Of course, she was snubbed!” he said. “It’s a horror film — and those are kind of traditionally maligned by the industry.”