Chilling frights abound
Midsommar (R18, 147 mins) Directed by Ari Aster Reviewed by James Croot ★★★★
Having reinvigorated the familial horror with last year’s chilling Hereditary, writer-director Ari Aster now takes on another of the genre’s traditional tropes – Americans’ European misadventures.
To be fair, though, much of the scene-setting bleakness actually takes place in the good old US of A.
College student Dani Ardor’s (a quite brilliant Florence Pugh) life is thrown into chaos when her troubled sister takes her own life and those of their parents.
Leaning on her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) for support, little does she know how close he was to ending their relationship before this traumatic event.
Now, feeling somewhat trapped, Christian can’t wait for his and his buddies’ six-week summer adventure across the Atlantic.
The expected highlight? A nineday festival at Swedish colleague Pelle’s (Vilhelm Blomgren) ancestral commune in Halsingland. Pelle tells them it’s a once-in90-years celebration conducted by his Harga people.
Christian is sure Dani will be fine with him going on the journey and would never consider wanting to join him, especially in her current state.
To his horror, he’s proven terribly wrong.
Eventually arriving at the vast fields and compact village that constitute the Hargas’ home, the group are instantly taken by their free approach to mind-opening hallucinogens and open spirits.
Just as quickly though, there’s conflict within the boys.
Christian decides he’d like to do an anthropological study on their rituals, something Josh (William Jackson Harper) had already declared an interest in, while Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) isn’t so sure they’ll take kindly to sharing many of their unique ways of doing things.
Perhaps one of the darkest movies ever to have been shot in gorgeous summer light (Hungary here standing in for Sweden),
Midsommar offers a feast of disturbing visions, fear-inducing moments and an ever growing sense of dread.
As with Hereditary, Aster doesn’t shy away from showing the consequences of actions and misfortunes, and some will struggle to last the movie’s marathon running time in all its gory glory.
But Midsommar offers more than just shock or schlock value. There’s plenty of art in this Wicker Man-meets-Logan’s-Run-by-way-ofTitus-Andronicus.
Aster has cleverly thought out his Harga rituals and values well (at least to the point of potentially creating plenty of post-viewing debate), and makes great use of sound, reflections, match shots and camera angles to draw the audience into his waking nightmare and leaving them glued to the screen.
Perhaps only slightly let down by a certain inevitability about the characters’ fates (it does rather slavishly follow some genre traditions potentially as old as the Hargas’), Midsommar is proof of the emotional and visceral power of a well-made horror movie.
The original Midsommar and a 171-minute director’s cut will screen in select cinemas from Thursday.