The Midsommar trailer teases bloody cult horror from the director of Hereditary

Remember Hereditary? That movie from last year that totally redefined the tongue cluck noise, cemented Toni Collette as a scream queen, and served as the definitive PSA as to why you should never follow Ann Dowd to a second location?

Well, good news: the mastermind behind all of that nightmare fuel is back.

A24 has just released the trailer for director Ari Aster’s new movie, Midsommar. Described as a “Scandinavian folk horror,” the film stars Florence Pugh as a young woman who reluctantly accompanies her boyfriend (Jack Reynor) on a summer trip to one of their friends’ hometown in rural Sweden. The vacation, however, quickly takes a turn, as the village’s midsummer celebration grows increasingly violent and strange, and is revealed to be part of a pagan cult.

Needless to say, the trailer digs right into creepy territory, its pastel aesthetic belying the way the ins and outs of the celebration (which a speaker describes as incapacitating) seem to portend doom rather than any summer joy. Glimpses of a dead bear with its guts on display, a knocked-out William Jackson Harper, and a person falling (presumably) to their death from a precipice suggest that Midsommar will be even more terrifying and strange than you’d imagine. There’s even an equivalent to Hereditary’s cluck noise in a repeated exhale sound.

To add to the general sense of unease, A24 dropped a series of creepy (to put it nicely) images in the lead-up to the trailer’s debut, all of which showcase the central midsummer ritual.

The film is set to be released on Aug. 9. Take a look at the first poster below.