The next few weeks are shaping up to be a robust series of days for horror fans. Usually, the real horror is kept within the confines of October, but not this year. This year, July will be giving us not only the new season ofStranger Thingsover on Netflix, but also heading our way next month is Alexandre Aja and Sam Raimi’s killer gator flickCrawland the recently re-titled third season ofScream: The TV Series,Scream: Resurrection. Oh, and let’s not forgetHereditarywriter-director Ari Aster’s new nightmareMidsommarstarring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, and once upon a time Pennywise, Will Poulter. If you weren’t already intrigued by Aster’s new horror movie, today we have word that the MPAA has slapped the flick with an R-rating. And this is why.
“Disturbingritualistic violenceand grisly images, strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use, and language.”
Whether or not Ari Aster’sMidsommarsounds like your cup of blood or not, let me go through the motions of backstory for you all the same. Do with the information what you will. The movie centers on a young American couple in a troubled relationship who travel to afabled Swedish midsummer festivalwhere a seemingly pastoral paradise transforms into a sinister, dread-soaked nightmare as the locals reveal their terrifying agenda. The movie is a co-production between the United States and Sweden and was initially planned by A24 to be a straightforward slasher film set amongstSwedish cultists.Hereditarywriter-director Ari Aster then came aboard and penned a screenplay using elements of the concept, but ultimately wrote a movie about a deteriorating relationship, which he has since referred to as “a breakup movie dressed in the clothes of a folk horror film.”
Ari Aster directsMidsommarfrom a screenplay he wrote himself that was shot on location in Budapest, Hungary in the summer and fall of 2018. The movie features Florence Pugh as Dani, Jack Reynor as Christian, William Jackson Harper as Josh, Will Poulter as Mark, Vilhelm Blomgren as Pelle, Archie Madekwe as Simon, and Ellora Torchia as Connie. Lars Knudsen and Patrik Andersson produced the new nightmare which features music by The Haxan Cloak, cinematography by Pawel Pogorzelski, and editing by Lucian Johnston. Square Peg and B-Reel Films are the production companies behind the film which A24 will distribute into a theater near you next week on June 14, 2025. This update comes to us via theMPAA.
