SPOILER WARNING for Hereditary and for Midsommar. I will be talking about big plot elements in both films so consider yourself warned
Personally, my horror backlog is kinda long.
People keep telling me that Midsommar is a lot like the Wicker Man (the 1973 one), and that Hereditary is a lot like the new Rosemary’s Baby. And while I understand the comparisons, I do think it is unfair to say either is a clone. Midsommar is close, but close is not a clone. I would say Midsommar was inspired by the OG Wicker Man more than anything. Even if they were purely spiritual successors, I don't think that discredits either. Sometimes it’s worth going through old plots, themes, and twists just to rehash the horror to a new generation of audience.
However, it’s notable the ways that Midsommar struck me in ways that other horror has not, not even Hereditary. After days of meditating on that sinking gut feeling I held within me, I realized so much of what Midsommar was about touched on my own personal traumas. Therefore, I propose a theory: A person’s direct reaction to a horror film is directly correlated to the horror of their life.
Sounds simple right?
Well, without any actual statistics to back this up - I just want to note that in my personal life when it comes to these films I have noticed a trend. People who are more frightened, well, not frightened - unsettled, that's the word, by Hereditary tend to have come from some kind of cycle of generational familial abuse or trauma. And people who are more unsettled by Midsommar are more impacted by EITHER grief or heartbreak. The difference of the horror for Midsommar for me, was that the horror of Midsommar communicated grief more clearly, more shockingly. Because the death and loss there was horrific, tragic, heart wrenching. And well directed. Those first twenty minutes hit me harder than the first hour of the Last of Us. That being said, I know Hereditary is also about grief, but the situations of grief are different.
Hereditary was about grieving for a complicated relationship.
Midsommar is about being cut off from your support network by drastic loss of life.
Both wrap up the horror based on those experiences.
And that is what Ari Aster wanted right? Hereditary is about inheriting generational curses - in the shape of an ancient persian demon that your grandma worshipped in a cult she was the matriarch of. Also! Even in death she’s trying to play cards with the demons possessing your children.
And Midsommar is about watching your shitty ex burn in a giant fire dressed like a bear because he didn’t have the decent respect to break up with you after your whole family died leaving you alone in this world in a horrific murder suicide.
Right?
Well, let me just say straight off, between the two, Midsommar hit closer to home for me. Although not for the reasons I think Ari Aster would expect - I’ve been through a dragging relationship where the breakup was shitty and a long time coming. I've cried in a Denny's parking lot after breaking up before he had the decency to order a last meal with me. I've been there. And he has claimed in interviews that Midsommar was a breakup movie to him, which is fair. We all know why Dani is sucked into a cult, the one support network she has left in her life is an asshole. Many people cheered his death, smiling with Dani.
But when I saw the ending scene, I only thought "Oh no hun that's not how you get over him."
Maybe that's because I live in the bible belt, and I have several friends who had to escape various kinds of cults. But i’ve also experienced the dramatic loss of a parent, violently, terribly, suddenly. The kind of tragedy that freezes you in time for several months, that drains every ounce of creative energy from your soul. When you become a husk of yourself, becoming a weight on all your relationships because everything you carry is so heavy that most people would rather cut you off than have the ability and want to make room to help with even a fraction of the load.
Speaking from experience: Grief changes you, especially when it’s sudden and violent, but also when it’s slow, withering. I once had a friend who, after we discussed it, realized that she and I had very similar trauma. Even though her parental loss was from cancer, and mine was from a deadly assault. In both cases a loved one’s life violently wrenched from the daily norm, for me the memory of my father hooked up to machines pumping air into his lungs, the bandages around his head, the bag of his blood going through dilation. All that imagery is seared into my mind. For her, that was several years of watching her father wither away. Baring through chemotherapy until his body became a skeleton.
That shapes you in ways you can’t truly understand until years after.
And Hereditary and Midsommar dig deep into those wounds.
That's not even mentioning the topic of generational trauma. And while I can’t say that’s something my family is drenched in, I have also had that taste. It's been ever-present in the experiences of my family even if I was relatively unscathed. Not just that I’ve helped my partner through some rough generational trauma. But it’s sympathy there. But the Empathy I felt to the main character of Midsommar rushed me through my Grief again five years after it was over and I was reliving those same demons again. Sorry Paimon, the burning bear boyfriend movie kicked me in the gut harder.
But it does bare mentioning, the narrative of tragedy and grief is a diverse one, but also one that we all have felt our lives touched by somehow. A car wreck where a newly engaged couple is severed before saying "until death do us part." A miscarriage for a child that two lovers just picked names for. A bright young woman, friendlier than can be, drowned in a freak accident. Complex stories of human life. And while none of those are movies are ones Ari Aster has touched (at least not yet), I gotta give the man credit for capturing these nuanced stories in a snapshot.
By the way all of those examples come from stories that someone I know had experienced and been shaped and molded by. Grief is a stab wound all of us experience at some point. The trauma of grief is something we all know in some way, at some point. And it's an easy nerve to pinch.
And yet... what really struck me is that after watching Midsommar, when doing heavy research into how other critics and people reacted to the film - like you do - I found that a lot of people… didn’t feel that the movie was about grief. Hell, Ari Aster didn’t feel the movie was about grief. Despite Florence Pugh putting on this brilliant example of what it’s like to become grief in the years after loosing everything… people rooted for Dani killing her boyfriend in the end like this was a black comedy.
Which is fine, people can interpret a movie however they want but HOW
Well, I know how, many people aren’t traumatized by their father’s violent death.
Did I see myself in Dani? Absolutely. I was her for several years. I still carry that piece of myself. I am no longer who I was before my father was murdered. And Ari Aster, a man who has never met me, captured my experience in a bottle and smashed me on the head with it.
Anyway, Hereditary. You know what freaked me out most about Hereditary? The fact that the grandmother was still ever present in the lives of of her daughter. I felt that because I lost a grandmother a while back and while she never was abusive to me, she certainly was abusive to one of her children - my aunt. And this woman has not lived with her mother since high school and yet her mother is in every deep conversation. Even now that my grandmother is dead this woman is still wrapped in her net.
Trauma runs deep. From abuse, from breakups, and especially, from grief. It's trauma, pretty horrific right?
And often horror is not about what is grotesque, but what is traumatic to the psyche. And sometimes it’s hard to get in touch with that essence without a little individual life experience for fuel. Yet - it seems to have touched the kind of audience who are attracted to these movies. Perhaps this is because those who are familiar with tragedy become attracted to the horror genre. Or perhaps that's because grief touches everyone, or that trauma touches everyone.
I suppose what i'm saying is, I'm impressed. Way to dig into my soul with a rusty shovel man. Your movies are simultaneously like therapy and antitherapy. How do you do it?
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