Midsommar Murders

Cult horror, as in horror about cults is hard to do in cinema without looking like The Wicker Man. The 1973 British film about a pagan religion on an isolated island has so firmly epitomized the folk horror aesthetic, that every movie to follow in its footsteps can’t help but echo its unnerving suspense, antiquarian visual sources, claustrophobia, and ultimate nihilistic outlook. All of this can be found in Midsommar, the new film from Hereditary director Ari Aster, who pairs the formulaic genre staples with deep themes on relationships and trauma that makes it more interesting than your conventional story of maypole dancing and ritual sacrifice.

Several months after the murder-suicide of her sister and parents, Dani (Florence Pugh) is reluctantly invited by her anthropology grad student boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) to a midsummer celebration at Hårga, the commune of his friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) in Sweden, alongside classmates Josh (William Jackson Harper) and Mark (Will Poulter). But once they arrive at the secluded camp, they begin to be disturbed by the customs of the community, and Dani, prone to panic attacks, becomes increasingly suspicious and frightened by the mysteries and unusual behaviour all around her.

This film is relentlessly ominous, with a slow build that crafts a consistently uncomfortable mood. You know of and are obviously waiting for the Lottery-style twist to drop on this otherwise quaint world, and Aster is well aware of this, playing with your expectations through dark humour and red herring visual language. There are a series of shots for example, framed to give off the impression of cannibalism, only for the implication to be avoided for something else disturbing. But though he tries to subvert his plot in some places, it always comes back to the same routines. People mysteriously disappear, bodies turn up, the cult turns out to be practicing a series of ancient and terrifying traditions, and before you know it someone’s encased in a burning effigy. The film drags a little for this despite its tension. But the one effectively unique element that Aster adds is a drug use component. Whether consensual or not, intoxication pervades the film and often throws reality into distortion, furthering an anxiety and empathy with the characters not being in control of themselves. It goes a ways towards making the cult that much more insidious and deceitful –even the residents of Summerisle didn’t antagonize or abuse poor Edward Woodward before the end. And it makes the fear more visceral.

Not that the cast don’t convey that on their own, but some of the characters are written rather one-dimensionally, and require the actors’ capabilities to stand out. Dani is the starkest exception to this though -an immensely engaging, psychologically scarred young woman who’s simultaneously the most vulnerable to the Hårga’s machinations and most aware of them. Her traumatic experience is addressed as the open wound it is, threatening to resurface and overwhelm her at the surest sign of alarm -something which demands exceptional energy and careful nuance alike in an actor. This has been a pretty great year for Florence Pugh though, who showcases unbelievably raw emotional distress throughout this film, as well as conveying a sombre and unyielding dependence even Dani may not be aware the depths of. That dependence is mostly directed towards Christian, whom Jack Reynor plays with coldness and selfishness, but the sliver of a genuine heart. Aster characterizes the film as a break-up movie, and that tension in the relationship between Dani and Christian rises just as much as in the nature of the commune itself. They’re a couple who, though not necessarily toxic, clearly should have split long before the movie began, staying together mostly through Dani’s need for an emotional tether and Christian’s concern for her despite his incapacity to fully grasp her needs. But the longer they stay together the more their connection becomes a harmful necessity in spite of their distance. Aster plays a clever game with this development, teasing his audience with it right up until making the deadly cut.

Vilhelm Blomgren is pretty good as that kind of thoroughly detestable guy who masks his entitlement with kindness and sympathy, frequently finding ways to get close to Dani and drive a wedge between her and Christian. I’m delighted to see William Jackson Harper, the breakout discovery of NBC’s The Good Place, getting more work, even if his character is a bit much of an intellectual stereotype; and Will Poulter delivers as usual, but sadly once again typecast as an asshole. The Swedish actors are all appropriately creepy, though in what’s becoming an unfortunate pattern for Aster, deformity is used as a shorthand for sinister abnormality in the form of an inbred oracle.

However where his sensitivities may be absent, Aster’s technique is not. His direction is tight and focussed, maintaining a claustrophobic atmosphere in the form of disorienting cinematography and precision shot composition. The smallness of the community is heavily emphasized, a mere handful of buildings being on-screen at any given time, and always so that they stand out against the wilderness. There are chilling long takes, tracking shots, and set designs; Aster even makes use of a similar dollhouse aesthetic at one point to the one he opened Hereditary with. Great use is made of overlapping shots, particularly late in the film, to illustrate fragmented thoughts or feelings, or even to just reinforce the films’ eerie hypnotism. To that end there is a degree of surreality present, and at a point a nightmarish sense of the inevitable. It really shocks through subtlety and a commitment to authenticity in its twisted, sometimes downright ridiculous situations.

There’s comedy to this movie of the darkly absurdist variety, a dark irony pervading some of its creepiest moments. Aster doesn’t take the film completely seriously, which is good, separating it once more from some of the pitfalls of this specific type of horror. Midsommar is solidly creepy, and makes up for the predictability of its plot through some excellent, compelling direction, a thrilling performance from Pugh (and an impressive turn from Reynor as well), and a basis in an understandable place of personal tension escalated to a harrowing end.

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