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‘Midsommar’ is Entirely Transportive, Trippy Dread
Once again, director Ari Aster takes us with him to very personal arenas of dread with Midsommar. With almost a completely different flavor, Hereditary follow up, Midsommar manages to surprise, darkly charm and have another long lasting effect that proves Aster is a singular voice currently in the genre.
I was a bloke who skipped every trailer, first impression and publicity still that I could in anticipation of this one. I was able to experience it going in entirely cold and for those like myself, I’ll spare you any spoilers during this review.
In broad strokes this is about a young group of friends that heads to Sweden in order to take part of a mid-summer fest. As the fest progresses through its varying phases each day, the young group of Americans find themselves far from home, high and in the midst of strange and horrific pagan activities.
The formula is akin to a common slasher at its ground floor, complete with all the fixins of a group of young folks heading out into the unknown for some fun. Aster then stirs in a complex blend with bits of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man and elements of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Two Thousand Maniacs.
Added to that formula is Aster’s overtly personal approach to his writing, which includes twinges of grief with what is (now) widely known to be a film that is about the inner workings of a breakup. The interesting thing here is that Aster doesn’t strictly make one individual or group the “bad guy,” instead he spreads the very human elements of being a jerk or being out right malicious to almost all the characters in the film.
“Aster’s voice is hypnotic
and completely vicious.”
On a small scale Aster also compares everyday American sensibilities and places against a backdrop of a pagan cult and does a nice deconstruction by way of juxtaposition. The end result being that the strange and violent ways of maintaining faith and order sometimes look better than ideological, self-centered opportunism. Order by big acts as opposed to chaos, self worth and the passive aggressive.
The true horror of the film comes at you through brightly lit pastel framework where the sun doesn’t set, and where the subtext of the first act sets up a tightly fastened snare of dread. Most impressively, Midsommar manages to do all that before the first bit of blood is spilled.
There is a special kind of accelerant behind the misery that makes this film’s run-time fly that is heavily reliant on its stellar cast and their chemistry. Leads Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor particularly compel with a subdued desperation and play nicely with the ideas of the more toxic sides of relationships that have run their course. In the third act of the film Pugh reaches a propulsive level of character work that makes it almost difficult to find your breath.
There are some gnarly sights and kills flowing throughout this one that manage to burn themselves deep into your subconscious. Shock inducing gore set pieces that at times reaches impressive levels of works of high art.
Strangely, the film is peppered with a really great sense of humor about itself. The horror elements don’t takeaway from the feeling of a real group of young folks. In its early moments there is a stoner comedy at work just under the low tide of the bizarre horror in wait. It’s an extraordinary approach given the subject matter and a vibe that I’m certain changes from audience to audience.
Midsommar is transportive, trippy dread that is depraved and darkly sensual. Aster’s voice is hypnotic as ever and completely vicious. Not taking anything away from the masterful, Hereditary, but Midsommar transcends and gives way to something that is as brilliant as it is unnerving.
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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.
We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”
Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:
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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.
Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.
Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.
Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.
The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.
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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.
Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.
These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:
According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”
Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.
Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.
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