Grudge reboot re-scheduled, Ari Aster’s new film gets a release date

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Release dates have been announced for a couple horror films that are coming to us from two interesting new genre directors; Nicolas Pesce, who made his feature directorial debut with 2016's THE EYES OF MY MOTHER, and Ari Aster, whose feature debut HEREDITARY was released by A24 earlier this year.

First up is Pesce's reboot of the GRUDGE franchise, a film about 

a mysterious and vengeful spirit marks and pursues anybody who dares enter the house in which it resides.

I'm not very interested in GRUDGE movies, but Pesce assembled an impressive cast for this one: it stars Andrea Riseborough, Demian Bichir, John Cho, Lin Shaye, Betty Gilpin, Jacki Weaver, William Sadler, and Frankie Faison.

The screenplay was written by THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN's Jeff Buhler.

Sony had been set to release GRUDGE on August 16, 2019, but just moved it up a couple months to June 21, 2019.

More interesting to me, since it's not a reboot of a franchise I was never a fan of to begin with, is Aster's new A24 collaboration, a film which may or may not end up being called MIDSOMMER.

Starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, Vilhem Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Ellora Torchia, and Archie Madekwe, this "Scandinavian folk horror" / "apocalyptic breakup" movie is about 

a young woman, already dealing with the death of her parents, who joins her boyfriend and his friends on a trip to Sweden, specifically to a remote town with unique midsummer traditions. Things go south from there.

A24 has announced that they will be releasing Aster's new film on August 9, 2019.