Midsommar is the second film by writer-director Ari Aster (Hereditary), but does it feature an after-credits scene? Aster earned rave reviews last year for his feature debut, which told the tale of a family in grief that’s best by a series of increasingly horrifying incidents.
Florence Pugh (Fighting with My Family) stars in Midsommar as Dani, a young American woman whose relationship with her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), has seen better days. After Dani experiences a traumatizing personal loss, Christian begrudgingly lets her join him and his schoolmates - including, his Swedish friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) - on a trip to Sweden to attend a rare mid-summer festival held by Pelle’s village. Little do they know, however, that the village’s celebration is anything but calm and relaxing, and before long Dani finds herself trapped in an altogether different waking nightmare.
For those who are wondering, Midsommar does NOT have an after-credits scene. It’s always worth remaining seated for a movie’s end credits, of course, and those who do so here may learn a few new things about who worked on Midsommar and/or where it was filmed (including, its additional photography). What they won’t get, however, is an extra scene or clip to watch.
For all of its critical acclaim, Hereditary was far from a crossover hit when it opened last year. Its increasingly disturbing and bizarre story twists, gloomy themes, and grotesque violence left mainstream audiences perplexed more than anything, as evidenced by the film’s D+ CinemaScore. Fortunately, it only cost $9 million to produce and grossed $79 million at the worldwide box office, making it a profitable venture overall. Most critics so far agree that Midsommar is just as twisted as Hereditary (if not more so), but the film had a similarly low budget and shouldn’t have much trouble covering its costs, either.
With Midsommar arriving a week after Annabelle Comes Home and two weeks after Child’s Play, the horror-loving crowd isn’t exactly hurting for options right now. That said, cinephiles known that Aster’s style of horror is entirely different from the competition’s, so that shouldn’t really impact Midsommar’s box office potential. The movie will also serve as counter-programming to the latest MCU sequel, Spider-Man: Far From Home, which opened a day earlier. Suffice it to say, for two films about young people trying to escape their problems by taking a summer vacation to Europe, Midsommar and Far From Home are otherwise about as different from each other as movies can be.
- Midsommar Release Date: 2019-07-03
