Oops. The audience then sees her awaken in the night to go outside just in time to see the rest of her group driving off without her, smiling and waving as they leave her alone in terrifying uncertainty. As the May Queen, Dani got to choose who is going to be sacrificed in a fire in the end. This little-seen Spanish horror follows a concierge who, believing he was born without the ability to feel happiness, decides to make life hell for everyone around him. Was Christian hallucinating, or was he actually still alive? Ad Choices. [Ed. We see the scene from Christian's eyes while he is still under the influence of psychedelic drugs. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? A guide to the hidden references in this buzzy anthologys new episodes, from first-season callbacks to what, Ezra Millers Messiah Delusions: Inside. She is wearing the same traditional outfit as a boy in an earlier scene (included only in the directors cut) who is almost drowned in a ritual, so we can assume Connie was later drowned in his place. Your vision tunnels, a scream wells up in your throat. GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Anybody watching the trailer for Midsommar, you probably know where its going, right? The movie follows a group of friends who journey to a remote Swedish village for a seemingly innocent midsummer festival, which soon descends into a ritualistic nightmare. You know from the beginning more or less whats going to happen. When Christian begrudgingly invites Dani to join him and some fellow anthropology graduate students on a trip to Sweden to visit a community known as the Harga, their fates are mutually sealed. In the end, she's sharing not just her grief and pain, but joy and celebration. For the first time, she cries and screams out loud instead of hiding her pain. All of them are true, Svensson said on the phone from Stockholm regarding the rituals depicted in the movie having at least some basis in historical fact, such as the oversized mallet used to finish the job when an older couple attempts suicide by jumping from a cliff. The end credits for Midsommar feature the unusual credit Concept of the Hargas by Martin Karlqvist and Patrik Andersson. The origins of the film came when Aster was approached by Andersson, a Swedish producer, and his friend Karlqvist, with an idea for a Swedish-set folk-horror tale. Tapestries and wall paintings hint at the unusual rituals that await the visitors: a love tonic made with pubic hair and menstrual blood, a large bear that will presumably be let out of its cage. However, if you are familiar with the type of torture depicted, you know that it is performed while the victim is still alive. We had some conversations with the other members of the cast, some of them, who hadnt had mushroom trips before and talked about the experiences of it and how it feels, he added. We settled on that the week before we screened the film, he added. It's perhaps the scariest 12-certificate film of all time. It's hard to believe that Simon met an even worse fate. The moment after the first woman jumps, where it's almost like the dust is knocked off of Dani and she's punched into another reality and just kind of dissociates completely, I remember the first take we did of that it was very clear that Florence had figured it out. But still, the villagers seem rather unfazed. You're dealing with the logic of why people don't leave when something horrible happens. And my way in was by kind of working through my breakup., However, Aster is conscientious to point out, Nobody in the movie is a surrogate for my ex-girlfriend. I felt that this was an opportunity for that to be turned on its head. Really hard-core., It was also apparently his idea to get fully naked. 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The painting has both represented, but the main takeaway here is that they are blind in the action.. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Many pieces were hand-embroidered, while others were painted or printed, with costumes used to signify different families and even different jobs within the community, such as servers or musicians. Its a turning point and a point of no return. "I'm somebody who does a lot of takes because I don't get a lot of coverage. Its a classic Swedish cut and design, said Flesch, in a call from Hungary. 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But beyond that, I knew I wanted it to be something you could kind of qualify and excuse and chalk up to cultural differences. Even if you're not into deciphering the puzzles, Midsommar is a powerful study of grief, betrayal, breakups, and more. But I can also see myself in Dani's shoesbeing overloaded, it being too much, and shutting down. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. For me, the film is incidentally a folk horror film. Varying sources claim in the very old days they would cut out the eyes of the round-goers, and this later evolved to simply blindfolding them. This article contains discussions of drug use and suicide. At the beginning of the film, Dani is alone in her grief. You cant breathe. In Hereditary, Ari Aster and his cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski exploited the dark. 'Yellowstone' Return Date Info, Savannah Guthrie Rushed Out Of 'Today' After Testing Positive For COVID-19 During Live Broadcast, Where Is Hoda Kotb? From psychological horror lingering in the background as Dani processes her trauma to explicit gore and body horror, Midsommar is a movie that makes a lasting impression. Best Picture Nominee Triangle of Sadness Is Now Streaming on Hulu, Stream It Or Skip It: 'Gulmohar' on Hulu, a Hindi Family-Ties Drama Marking the Return of Sharmila Tagore, Steven Spielberg Broke Down in Tears Seeing Paul Dano and Michelle Williams as His Parents in 'The Fabelmans', Is Brendan Frasers The Whale Based on a True Story? A villager holding an oversized mallet walks over to the man, casual, businesslike. I didn't have to give her much direction. Directed by: Alejandro Amenbar. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. I felt that this was an opportunity for that to be turned on its head. Through our interpretation, it stands for something more closely in line with the life cycle.. You watch the woman fall through the air like an apple shaken from its branch. For example, the "midsommar" festival is based on the very-real Midsummer festival celebrated yearly in Sweden. This happens after Dani is, for the first of many times in the movie, coerced into taking psychedelic drugs, this time by the people who she relies on as her only friends in a very strange situationwhich only serves to make it all the more unsettling. While it was likely cut because it reiterates the same story beats seen in other sacrifice scenes, this one is particularly affecting because it drastically furthers the rift between Christian and Dani and it confirms the horrible fate met by Connie. We'll follow Dani and a group of friends as they visit the commune . He picks up his giant mallet, swings it over his shoulder, and bashes the elders head like its a game of whack-a-mole. And as her scene partner, that was nerve-wracking I felt more vulnerable than I'd expected to feel and I felt more on edge and it definitely stayed with me after I left.". Midsommar is Ari Aster's second movie, and a follow-up of his folk horror film Hereditary (Aster, 2018). Another man who was chosen to be sacrificed sat there waiting for the flames to engulf him. This scene in "Midsommar" pulls from the folkloric idea of the ttestupa, a legendary ritual through which Scandinavian elders may or may not have thrown themselves from cliffs in historic times. Directed by: Pascal Laugier. In one specific scene, two elderly people take part in ritual suicide, which horrifies the guests, but is a beautiful ceremony to the locals. And so theres a pleasure in taking a movie to that extreme. Directed by: William Friedkin. Forget the effects-laden remake this version of It, released as a miniseries in 1986, is the most terrifying adaptation of Stephen King's beloved novel to date. You feel her panic, confusion, her fear, but you also become aware of the absurdity of what just took place. Orgies, for example, are a favorite of films and tv shows about cults, as are threesomes, incest, and of course, creepy chanting. Can you think of any film that youve watched that has as accurately represented the experience of a mushroom trip? Reynor said. An oracle named Ruben makes drawings that are interpreted and woven into a biblical tome for the community. We all felt for him, and for Isabelle, and for all the women who were around in that scene. The man swings again. If anything, this is my attempt at making a big operatic breakup movie that feels the way a breakup feels, said Aster. 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Jordan Michael B. Handsome at Walk of Fame ceremony, Review: Natural beauty and a touching ecological tale center the female-forward Blueback. A detail from a Viking-era picture stone in Gotland, Sweden, shows a ritual execution resembling a practice described in Nordic texts as the "blood eagle." (Image credit: Berig, CC BY-SA 3.0 via . One by one the friends are picked off, until Dani and Christian are the only ones left; Aster has repeatedly said the film is thematically about a really bad breakup, with Christian epitomizing the Shitty Boyfriend trope. All rights reserved. This isn't being pulled from historical fact, but it is part of Swedish folklore that people once committed ritual suicide this way, with an audience present. Because nothing says horror like a 1920 German Expressionist film. Fans Fuming Over Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings' Hosting Schedules: "I Want Ken Full-Time". It's a cleansing and visceral scene, making Florence Pugh one of the best and most underrated scream queens ever. It is also serving a couple of other functions that become more clear at the end. Speaking to Thrillist, Reynor said it took about two weeks to shoot: Every day, going to work and shooting something that is incredibly humiliating and upsetting personally and thinking about yourself in the context of it and trying to put yourself in the position of itit was hard-core, he said. "It's kind of an intense one to begin with, so finding the way to do that in the most efficient way possible was a challenge," he told SYFY WIRE. Twist-filled horror drama The Wailing follows a policeman who investigates a series of mysterious killings and illness in the mountains of South Korea. They become far more than just observers, but unwitting pawns in a series of rituals and customs that play out with ultimate consequences. The scene is absolutely gruesome. This is not Swedish history. The Director's Cut of Midsommar has a number of added scenes packed with new meaning. The hanging beasts represent a cut-out sequence from our groups journey to Hrga, Svensson explained. The lead character is drugged, disrobed by a bunch of naked women of various ages and then voluntold to have sex with a creepy girl who is . The scene remains a standout even among the film's many memorable moments for the strange and often discordant tone it strikes between horror and sometimes humorous discomfort as Reynor's character Christian occasionally seems as if he's watching the events occur from outside himself. Aster echoed Reynor's assessment of the process, which required him to strike the right atmosphere not just in the scene itself but during shooting in order to maximize his cast members' comfort given the fact that it featured a group of naked women standing in a semicircle as Reynor and Grill simulated intercourse. By Karen Han . Directed by: Tobe Hooper. In a moment, the man will join her. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Horror movie stars Reynor and Florence Pugh as a couple whojourney to aremote Swedish village for a seemingly innocent midsummer festival, which soon descends into a ritualistic nightmare, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. The scene is also juxtaposed by Dani (a fantastic Florence Pugh) having a mental breakdown, surrounded by members of the commune who mimic her every wail. To describe the horrors of Kill List is to ruin the film's surprises, but let's just say this: the final 20 minutes of Ben Wheatley's violent drama from 2011 features some of the most unsettling scenes in any film from this decade. the sex scene One of the things revealed on a tapestry is the love ritual that is performed on Christian, meant to bind him to a specific young woman for conception and procreation. 'Mandalorian' Funko Pops up to 77% Off Baby Yoda and More for Season 3, Who Plays the Armorer in 'The Mandalorian'? This is us playing the concept of a circular saga and the Hrga as almighty/all-seeing., The presence of the maypole symbol, meanwhile, was a way of squeezing in one of Perssons very first ideas, turning the maypole into a sort of amulet symbol, underneath a floral arrangement in the style of ancient Hlsinge mural art flora., The ritual depicted here is omitted from the film entirely, though the number of people present and the fiery motif may recall the films final, cathartic events. That said, many of the rituals in Midsommar are based on actual rituals and myths from Nordic countries. This ritual, by contrast, seems to be relatively sedate, as Svensson, explaining that the burning buoy in the center symbolized the sun, described the ritual as consisting of a single step: Nine naked women with torches swim to the buoy and the ceremony consists, simply put, of symmetrical movement with the buoy in center.. Why did you choose these actors to play the two elders who kill themselves?The man who plays the second jumper [Bjrn Andrsen] is actually very famous in Sweden. But the actor suggested that the resulting jumble of feelings audiences may have during the scene speaks to its unique place among other horror moments involving sexuality albeit where a man becomes the objectified focus of its victimization instead of a woman. From the cliff scene to the story behind Ruben, the scariest scenes in Midsommar have stuck with fans since its release, still terrifying them today. Aster said it was a long process of trial and error to find the exact nuance of the visuals. Alone in a room, she suddenly sees her sister behind her in the mirror, a classic horror shot that pushes Dani even further and completely overwhelms her emotionally. So its true, all of it. Aster was racing to finish the film for its initial screenings just a few weeks ahead of release and almost immediately began doing extensive interviews. Two months later, Aster's original 171-minute cut was released in U.S. theatres. The decision alone isn't the scariest part, though. Black-and-white silent horror film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) is considered the quintessential work of German Expressionism, but also one of the scariest films in cinema history. RELATED: Where Else You Know The Midsommar Cast From. Hereditary showed the influence of claustrophobic and occult movies like Rosemary's Baby and The Mephisto Waltz. Chunks of her head are missing. She took a trip to escape her grief, but this Swedish village was hiding a brutal secret. Not only was he tortured endlessly, but he was also still alive when Christian found him. Not through Danis (Florence Pughs) eyes. M idsommar is Ari Aster's haunting folk horror film that stunned audiences in 2019. It's a custom of theirs; rather than let themselves become a burden to the community, the elders throw themselves off the cliff as a sacrifice. Link your TV provider to stream movies, full episodes, and live TV. So, the scene in question, is basically a mating ritual. ", "I was in a room with another 12 or 14 people who were very exposed and who were also feeling very vulnerable," Reynor said. A Terrible Trip, Midsommar (2019) Staring a Little Too Long. I like things that really encourage a more active audience engagement, said Aster, and if theres a way to provide exposition in a way that makes the audience do a certain amount of work that encourages them to lean in towards the movie as opposed to handing people that information its just more fun., We never talked about giving away too much, said Svensson. newsletter. If anything, I'm just allowing it to happen where it feels appropriate. In this scene, Dani is participating in one of Hrga's more energetic Midsommar rituals. note: Spoilers for Midsommar follow.]. And once more. But what begins as a carefree holiday takes a sinister turn when the villagers force their guests to partake in their deadly rituals. Set 18 years prior to the events of the first two films, we see the cause of the curse that follows characters Katie and Kristi for the rest of their lives and it's down to a coven of witches led by their grandmother. Her limbs are splayed like roadkill. Audiences lapped up the story of a couple who capture supernatural presences on a camera in their own home. In the room where everyone slept, we see a mural of the ttestupa ceremony, the May queen dance, and most relevant: two people having sex for an audience of naked women on an elaborate bed of . For me, the best filmmaking is almost always mischief-making," the director says of ttestupa. It's overload. Creepy Catalog is owned by the Thought and Expression Company, a small, independent media company. After relieving himself on the sacred tree, Mark is lured away and skinned off-screen. Ruben is introduced as an oracle to the tourists. The next day, the group . Its hard to watch. Afterward he becomes completely paralyzed and is later burned alive in a bear suit while Dani watches, bringing his scary, psychosexual journey as the ultimate Shitty Boyfriend to a dramatic close. This leads to one of the most disturbing scenes in the film, in which a drugged-out Christian is brought in to have sex with the young woman in front of a chorus of chanting naked women. High on hallucinogenics and fresh from a weird rape ritual, Christian stumbles into a shed where Simon is in the middle of blood eagle torture. Its a lot of paintings, but most of them are in the background or out of focus. In the scene, you can also see Simons lungs slightly inflate, indicating that he is very much still alive. As with Aster's debut film, Hereditary, in which a doll's house acts as a metaphor for the gradual unravelling of a family driven apart by a demonic cult, Midsommar, too, is littered . "Historically humiliating scenes and scenes of explicit nudity in a sexual context at a point where a character is meeting their fate has been reserved for females. they are flying in the dance and looks down on Earth as observers.. The ending of Midsommar is terrifying and cathartic both at the same time. Some will be obvious to those whove seen the film; others may come as something of a surprise, as not all of the rituals shown actually make it on screen. I think there are times when the film commits to going absurdly big and operatic and grand. All of the events seen throughout the film have happened many times before at least every 90 years and the murals are the Hrgas way of documenting this since none of the participants can be a part of this twice (because no-one can be older than 72), said production designer Henrik Svensson, in an exclusive deep dive for Polygon. Aster can't and doesn't try to take credit for dreaming up this unnerving ceremony. The Others (2001) is a towering achievement for Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenbar who wrote, directed and scored this Nicole Kidman-fronted tale about a woman trying to protect her children from supernatural forces. Directed by: Neil Marshall. From Ari Aster's 2019 folk-horror film Midsommar to 2017's The Ritual to the 2008 Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In, . How did you think about portraying these dueling thingsfear and opennessgoing on within Dani?A lot of it is in the script. Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes and Ruth Gordon's performances tip this psychological chiller into classic status. Directed by: Roman Polanski. Directed by six filmmakers, including Adam Wingard and Ti West, 2012 anthology film V/H/S is grimy horror of the tallest order. Reynor stars as Christian, the boyfriend of Florence Pughs character Dani, in the second feature film by Hereditary director Ari Aster. She's so adept at . So this forces her to contend with that. Since he continuously let her down, she decided that her boyfriend Christian should die. In Sweden, the Midsummer . Plus, the "language" the girls speak toward the end of the dance isn't Swedishit's made-up gibberish, which furthers the idea that something inexplicable and sinister is transpiring. Simon and Connie are two travelers from London who Dani and her group meets when they first arrive at the commune in Sweden. Even though we all knew that Josh died after disrespecting the cult's rules, it was still shocking to see his leg sticking out of a garden plot after Christian is done with Maja. Japanese horror maestro Takashi Shimizu who also directed the pretty scary 2005 remake starring Sarah Michelle Gellar balances mystery with horror in Ju-On: The Grudge, a story based in a cursed house in Tokyo. Directed by: Scott Derrickson. The deaths of Dani's parents in the first scene set a foreboding tone for the film. He lifts his mangled head. When merged with the fast-paced infected and the usage of John Murphy's song "In the House In A Heartbeat", it's hard to deny it such status. There's an outrageous sex scene in "Midsommar" that viewers can't stop talking about, and star Jack Reynor said it wasn't the easiest thing to pull off."I was very naked for a very long time," Reynor told INSIDER.