What Kind of Movie Ari Aster Wanted <em>Midsommar </em>to Be

This story contains mild spoilers for the film Midsommar.

Ari Aster is not afraid to talk about how personal his filmmaking is. Maybe he should be; anyone who’s seen his debut feature Hereditary, and its follow-up Midsommar (which opens in theaters today), might expect the director to be as bleak and bizarre as his creations. But though Aster has described the harrowing Hereditary as a family drama pulled from feelings about his own life, and Midsommar as a breakup movie written in the throes of heartbreak, he’s chipper and thoughtful in person, the kind of artist whose dark side seems to reside entirely within his art.

is not as straightforward a piece of horror as was, but it’s still a distressing work, following Dani (Florence Pugh), her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor), and other unwitting Americans as they visit a Swedish commune that has planned a secretive, deadly celebration. I talked to Aster about his fondness for blending genres, the respective canons of breakup films and daytime horror,