#midsommar review

[jme-avi]

Midsommar (2019)

★★★★

(TW: suicide)

Spoilers are ridden throughout this review, so I recommend watching the movie before reading this.

This was quite a step from my horror movie comfort zone of slasher films and this is honestly a pretty good starter for psychological horror…it certainly was for me.

I get scared pretty easily. Do you guys remember that meme from a couple years back where that one guy would hack into your YouTube channel or something and it was made to scare small kids, Momo? I recently found that again while researching suicide cases for something I’m writing for my English class and I’m still quite shooketh. What fucking asshole came up with that? I was in Year 4. I was 9 years old. That shit hit me like a truck. I literally couldn’t sleep for weeks which is probably where my insomnia came from. Thanks Reddit, now I’m on 5mg of melatonin at the prime of my fucking youth. Children killed themselves over that and thank whatever God is up there I didn’t go further down the Reddit rabbit hole but anyway, the point stands. Psychological horror isn’t supposed to scare you, it’s supposed to unsettle you. And it does that very well…halfway into the movie.

One think I didn’t like was how. slow. moving. it was. Stuff definitely happens and I get that if it was shorter, nothing would make sense and there is a directors cut, I think, and I probably would have been better off watching that since my attention span is that of a goldfish on Lexapro but I didn’t. I watched the full 2 and a half hours and powered through the first hour, and I’m glad I did. You do feel like the main character Dani with the feeling of no escapism. You flew to Sweden, drove a four-hour drive, got drugged immediately and now what? Nothing. There’s no escape now. It’s a horrifying feeling and Ari Aster captures that well.

The gore in this movie, as well, is really good. Halfway into the movie, there is a ritual where the oldest people in the commune jump off of a fucking cliff and their bodies smush like clay…because it probably was clay. Tensions are high, especially with the people from London, Simon (god bless, rest in peace) and Connie which you feel in your bones, which I think captures a good horror movie.

The sex scene too is very uncomfortable; another thing that makes up a good horror movie. A girl from the commune, Maja, has her virginity taken by a drugged Christian and all the elder females circle around her, nude and mimic her moaning? It immediately makes you feel as though you’re watching something you shouldn’t be, especially when Dani sees this through a hole in the door and throws up. Coming from a person with emetophobia (fear of vomiting) I had to pause the movie and take a second. And when I got back, it only got worse, with all the other people mimicking Dani’s heaves and cries. Needless to say, I wasn’t sad when she chooses Christian to stuff in a gutted bear, and get burnt alive.

Yeah. This movie’s pretty fucked up.

Overall, I did enjoy this movie, and I’d definitely sit down and watch it again, which, in my books, makes it a pretty good movie.

My ask box is open if you would like to recommend other movies or shows for me to review!! Thank you for reading!

[pintsofguinnesmakeyoustrong]

utterly obsessed with this midsommar review

[blackandwhlteaesthetlc]

Florence was a guest on Zach Braff’s podcast to discuss her career and their new film A Good Person, which is out today!

I especially loved this bit at the end about her thoughts on possibly Directing films one day:

“I’d love to be a Director. I think I need to learn a bit more. I need to soak it up. It’s such a tricky position to have, and to lead, and to be a leader on a film set. You really have to be-You have to know your shit. And if you don’t a lot of people can get, you know, twisted up by that. And I think, for me, I don’t want to go in and not know and then affect an actor badly…It’s something that you really should go in knowing that you can do it. So I think I’m just going to do a bit more learning.”

[the-horror-snob-archives]

Rewatching "Midsommar" for the fifth time. I really like this movie, Ari Aster is a fantastic director. I love his work. "Hereditary" was great too and he's got a really fucked up short film on YouTube called "The Strange Thing About The Johnsons"

[jason-please-see-a-psychiatrist]

some of my favorite reviews ive left on letterboxd bc im a comedic genius

[sweatyshroom]

i finally watched midsommar and I'm really starting to enjoy Ari Aster as a director :3 definitely one of my favorites. i think movies that hide so many little secrets give me even more reason to love them because then i can like...obsess over it. maybe watch it another time and be like "woah omg!!!!" yknow what i mean also, the cinematography is some of the best i've seen in a very long time. like i absolutely love studying the meaning behind what colors were used and everything. beautiful movie

[pricelesscinemas]

[hannibalismos-jaaneman]

the fact that barbie's rotten tomatoes score is 90% and oppenheimer's is 94% says a lot about us as a society.

[lov3lyl0vr]

sooooo deeply in love with movies that make me so out of it like Black Swan, Dont Worry Darling, Midsommar...

god they just make me fucking insane

[gravecinema]

Grave Reacts: Midsommar (2019) - 06/20/2023

In this video, my roommate will be reacting to her first time watch of Midsommar from 2019. She was great with the predictions on this one, and she really enjoyed it!

[imalloutofgin]

Even more films I've watched recently that I haven't had time to post about... Yes, I know, I'm bad at this...

Sicario: Day Of The Soldado (2018): I would sum this up as "they had me going in the first half, not gonna lie". A scathing indictment of the American war machine. 4/5 stars.

The Raid 2 (2014): Obviously the fight choreography is amazing, but this sequel had more plot and character development than the last. Very fun and suspenseful. Loved it even more than the original. 5/5 stars.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022): It is exactly what you expect a Top Gun movie to be. Does exactly what it says on the tin. 3/5 stars.

13 Assassins (2010): I liked this a lot! I especially enjoyed the horror elements. I found myself very engrossed all the way through. 4/5 stars.

The Lego Movie (2014): This was surprisingly good. I really enjoyed it's anti-capitalist messaging and over all I just had a really fun time watching it. 3.5/5 stars.

Midsommar (2019): The imagery from this film has stuck with me for quite some time. It was quite a harrowing film, deeply unsettling, and had me gripped from start to finish. 5/5 stars.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019): I think this may be the most enjoyment I have ever felt from a John Wick film. I did like the others but this had an even greater sense of fun and playfulness. The film knows what it is and leans in. 4/5 stars.

[oceanic-invert]

Just finished midsommar and have thoughts.

The cinematography, sound design and costume/prop/set design is amazing but from a horror perspective for me it's lacking.

It's lacking those moments that just unsettle you, it's lacking those crucial moments that build tension and a connection to the characters, even the admittedly brutal displays of the bodies at the end lacks something that I can't quite place my finger on.

While I do believe there is a place for foreshadowing in horror, there is far too much in this film to the point where it just blatantly tells you what's going to happen especially with the art on the walls.

Alot of the acting felt bland as well, and the writing felt a bit empty. Everything was too slow, until the last ten mins or so when suddenly everything was thrown at you.

Overall, I'm just really disappointed in it as a horror film but maybe I've just been desensitised to gore by hannibal and don't find it as disturbing as most people.

[demoniqueer]

[melakinesis]

Midsommar - dir. Ari Aster

Florence Pugh ~ Will Poulter ~ Jack Reynor

spoiler free film opinion (1/2)

genre: horror - thriller - psychological - drama

This film is absolutely one of my favourites. In this gripping & chilling tale - a group of friends visit Sweden for the once-in-90-years Midsummer festival.

Not only does this film make you uneasy - it also makes you comfortable. Shot in daylight for the vast majority, horrors come in times you least expect. Graphic & in your face, Midsommar is definitely not for the faint-of-heart or those uncomfortable with gore.

Ari Aster gives us a unique film watching experience. This film takes you on a ride with its characters. You feel what they feel & you see things the way they see them. A real chest moving piece.

I love this film because it’s unlike so many I’ve seen. I instantly fell in love, not only with our main character Dani- but also with Florence Pugh who does an incredibly phenomenal job in this movie. You feel the nightmares she feels. You feel her pain, her pining & her suffering. I’ve never felt such longing & loss like I felt in this film. I always find things I missed on the first watch. A real thinker with so many things to pay attention to. Hidden details in every corner.

I’ve recommended this film countless times to many friends. Anyone who asks for a great film to watch, Midsommar is always the first to be listed off. 100% worth your time, you will not be disappointed.

[vf-thompson]

Film Review: Midsommar Reveals the Unspeakable Horror at the Heart of Going Over to Dinner at Your Swedish Friend's House

So, this was a weird one to watch with my mom and sister over Christmas break, 2021, while i recovered with her from a tumultuous emotional upheaval in my life. You know when your anarchist food distribution network implodes on itself because of assault allegations, and then your entire life blows up from the emotional fallout because you were supposed to move in with the guy at the center of it all? No? Well, when that happens, it leaves you in the right frame of mind to suggest Ari Aster's Midsommar as a perfect bit of family bonding to watch with your death doula mother and estranged intrepid globe-trotting sister. "You guys like psychological thrillers, right?" i naively said, queuing the film up. As Mr. Aster so beautifully illustrates in this nasty little movie, there truly is no place like home for the holidays.

My first viewing of the film had been two years earlier, when i was living in a thirty-bedroom party house near a large university, which was honestly pretty similar to the sinister Nordic society that Aster dreams up here. i was myself (allegedly) on shrooms when i wandered into the living room to see Florence Pugh's simpering, miserable face, surrounded by breathing flowers.

It wasn't until later, viewing the film in full with a close friend in their room, that i realized the flowers in this movie are just f**kin' like that.

i had seen the trailers for the film, been interested, and promptly forgotten of its existence, having not yet seen Aster's previous nightmare, Hereditary. Watching it that night in my friend's darkened lair of a room, stoned to the bone while she ran torture mods on her Sims on her laptop, i was a changed woman. i was, now and forever, Ari Aster's little bitch, cursed to simp for everything the man touches until i am pushed from the top of the senior citizen high dive cliff myself.

i'll be the first to admit that Aster by no means makes perfect films. Built on the bones of classical tragedy and comedy the way they are, they are rudimentary films, hardly cerebral like his contempories Eggers and Peele. There is something almost primal about Aster's gaze. Pelle sums it up best, as he explains the function of his remote village's midsummer festival to the film's protagonist Dani: "It's like a play," he says. Indeed, as Hereditary turns a bare bones haunted house story into a Greek tragedy, this film turns the macabre pageantry of rustic European folk dancing into a basic, almost paint-by-numbers, slasher flick. The cast of mostly disposable college students are picked off one-by-one by the rural pagans. It's hardly breaking new ground here—but treading old ground seems to be Aster's primary project. The man dances on top of graves with a wicked abandon, and if you're not privy to his particular brand of self-aware theatre kid shenanigans, it can be... a lot.

My mother and my sister were, for example, less than enthralled with my gushing over the ways Aster deftly compares the base, cathartic tradition of watching a bunch of co-eds get their shit wrecked with ooky-spooky horror-fied neopagan rituals. What can i say? i thought that she, as a hospice nurse who studies death practices around the world, would think it was interesting.

At its core, Midsommar is a movie about losing all the stability in your life, and having it completely colonized by found family, like honey bees building their hive in the skull of a lion. Found family is usually a treacly trope, one which ties characters together through strength found in their shared struggled against adversity. Midsommar flips that on its head, introducing us, in a manner not unlike Disney's classic film Meet the Robinsons, to the adoptive familial unit from hell. It raises the spectre of classic daylight horror cinema like The Wicker Man, trampling on its burial mound with manic dancing feet. Family traditions can be murder. As stated, the message is blunt as a hammer. Aster is not a subtle film-maker. Indeed, the opening shot establishes the whole film, just as in Hereditary, as nothing but an elaborate puppet show where the puppets bleed. A lot. In many respects it is the same movie told over again, with Aster's dolls moved from the dollhouse to the garden outside.

Simply put, the movie is incredibly pretty, incredibly fun if you're into this kind of things, absolutely insufferable if not. The soundtrack, color-grading, and ending sequence are transcendent. When Father Odd tells Dani "Welcome home," upon arriving in the village, you will either fall for their intoxicating spell, or you'll be smart enough to get the hell out.. Either way, i recommend it heartily, and can not recommend (allegedly) dropping shrooms at the same time as the characters in the film enough.

Read on LetterBoxd HERE.

[bethmol]

Portrayal of Mental Illness in Horror Films

I wrote this article a few weeks ago as a Halloween feature for the Chester CELLMates magazine I act as an editor for. The idea came to me as a stereotypical 'light-bulb moment' and - with my fingers working overtime, and a fantastic team member's aid with editing -this was the finished product:

Please feel free to share your thoughts via comments on the CELLMates website, or in Tumblr reblog/submission form!