Midsommar Lands R Rating For Grisly Images And Disturbing Violence

Hereditary was so 2018.

Writer-director Ari Aster is back, back, back with Midsommar, and though we tend to approach new horror releases with a sense of cautious optimism, with Aster’s sophomore effort, we’re inclined to believe the hype.

For one, Jordan Peele of Get Out, Us and The Twilight Zone fame went on record to say that Midsommar is crammed full of “atrociously disturbing imagery,” and it seems the Motion Picture Association of America agrees with him. The official rating from the MPAA is a hard R, citing “disturbing ritualistic violence, grisly images, strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language.” Where do we sign up?

And sure enough, studio A24 reveled in the MPAA’s decision, tweeting the following certificate:

And it’s not just Aster’s name on the masthead that has us excited, as Midsommar also features a top-tier cast, too, including Jack Reynor, Will Poulter and Florence Pugh with Vilhelm Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Ellora Torchia, and Archie Madekwe.

What awaits them is blood-curdling terror the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Per MPAA, the general premise of Midsommar follows Pugh and Reynor’s curious characters, who travel to Sweden to attend a summertime festival with some friends. It’s good old-fashioned fun under the Scandinavian sun… until it isn’t, and things start to go awry very, very quickly. We’ll give you a clue: the festival isn’t really a festival at all, but a demented cult dancing merrily to an agenda straight out of the dark ages. Brace yourself, things are about to get weird.

Midsommar creeps into theaters on July 3rd, so if you’re wanting something a little more thrilling than, say, Spider-Man: Far From Home, look no further than Ari Aster’s spine-tingling sophomore effort.