Hereditary and Midsommar Are Fatally Flawed 

I think the point of the director wanting us to root for Dani and choose to kill Christian was so we'd really fall for the idea of the cult being good to prove the point of cults in general. We and Dani are so focused on how bad of a person Christian is that it blinds to how terrible the cult is, mimicking the way cults work in real life: they target emotionally vulnerable people because they're the easiest to convert.

I viewed Paimon as the physical manifestation of intergenerational trauma/abuse. Annie spends the whole film desperately trying to protect her family from Ellen (and Paimon). She watched how Ellen pushed her brother, Charles, to suic!de. When she was pregnant with Peter, she distanced herself from Elle, but felt guilty and allowed her back after the birth of Charlie. During this time, Ellen puts Paimon into Charlie, resulting in the distancing once again. After Ellen's death, Annie feels confused and unsettled, like people are watching her or plotting against her, but she is resistant to open up about it. Then, Charlie dies suddenly, and Annie is distraught. In her compounded grief (and release of Paimon), she blames Peter and distances herself from her husband, falling deeper into isolation and aggression. She and Peter have repeated nightmares, but instead of explosive moments like Annie, Peter descends into apathy. Steve is desperately trying to hold everything together. Annie tries to get them to believe there is a something happening, but Steve thinks Annie is making it all up. Steve dies after Annie attempts to sacrifice herself to end it, allowing Paimon the final push to take over her to atttack Peter. Upon Peter seeing Annie's gruesome end, he also attempts suic!de, but it was unsuccessful and Paimon takes over him too. Ellen being "secretive" and "manipulative", the consistent suic!des, Peter's affinity for substances, and the cult's beliefs that Paimon will bring them honor, wealth, and knowledge and "bind all men to their will" also fit into this idea. The inescapable nature is hinted at many times, but I feel it is most glaringly obvious when Peter is in English class and they discuss Oedipus Rex, debating whether it is more or less tragic that the characters did not even have a chance to change their fate. Many people that experience trauma, specifically parental abuse, describe it as if they never stood a chance of being a healthy person, as if they inherited a curse they fear they will pass to their own children. Since the movie is bookended with Annie's miniatures, I saw it as her experience of succumbing to and perpetuating the generational curse, regardless of how hard she tried to fight it.

I watched Hereditary by myself in my house in the dark. By the end I had my mouth agape and never seen a horror movie that made me feel that type of way. Idc if it’s flawed. It was an amazing experience.

See I rather like the way Midsommar manipulates you into wanting that ending. How throughout the entire thing you are being made to sympathise with Dani, and being shown what an awful person Christian is, that when she makes the choice at the end you are cheering her on (or at least I was). And then you’re confronted with the reality of what that means like, “yeah, he’s a dick, but did he really deserve this nightmarish fate?”

anyone who says "i didnt like that the ending of hereditary was supernatural" didn't play close attention to the rest of the movie or only watched one time. The supernatural stuff is a BIG part of the WHOLE movie.

So here's the thing about Dani in Midsommar. We can infer from the conversation with her sister in the opening that Dani grew up being her sister's keeper- loving her sister deeply, expending so much effort to protect and be there for her, and learning how to live with the chaos of her sister's mental illness only for her sister to take everything from Dani, including herself. The fact that Dani's only close relationship seems to be Christian - her bf really suggests that she finds it difficult to relate and feel close with other people, this often happens when people grow up enmeshed in family dysfunction, their family is their whole world and the trauma they've experienced alienates them from others. THIS is why Dani is holding onto Christian so tightly- not because he's so wonderful, but because for whatever reason he is all she has, he is her only real human connection left. And deep down she MUST know this, but instead she looks past his clear uncomfortability in being there to appreciate and cling desperately to the fact that he is there at all. And as for Christian, I think one could say, while I certainly agree with you he's an asshole, that he was very much out of his depth when it came to helping Dani with her grief. Not every relationship works out, he was ready to leave but frightened to- he mentions it early on, what if leaving is the wrong choice? This is a man who isn't really sure what love is, but who knows he DOESN'T want to be an asshole and so he stays with a grieving partner, but can't escape being an asshole, because he isn't in love with her, and he's not very good at faking it. He's damned if he goes and damned if he stays and he's just kind of trapped in this moral conundrum with (apparently) noone around him of any real moral insight to help him figure out what to do. I actually find these characters very believable. We are never meant to root for them to stay together. We are actually meant to root for them to find a way to recognize it isn't working and to find the strength and emotional clarity to break up, so that they can find what they need where it actually exists instead of clinging to each other out of fear. That is the dramatic momentum of the film and that's why when Dani chooses to burn Christian, it feels like a triumph of sorts. Perhaps we learn so little about their relationship because both of them are bad at inhabiting their authentic selves with certainty and communicating from that place. They are co-dependent AF.

I actually loved the ending of Hereditary. I also loved the ending of the Witch- but I’m a huge fan of horror folkelore. I loved the ode to Rosemary’s Baby at the end.

I think the reason Dani was clinging onto Christian so tightly despite him being mid was because she needed him while she's grieving. Even though he doesn't actually support her other than like sometimes hugging her or letting her lean against him, she's just so broken by her loss that it would be devastating to lose him too. (maybe before her family died, she was just afraid to be alone because she had no other close friends or something) - to me that actually makes it even more devastating, Dani is out here saying "I know that you don't do anything for me, I know you are completely incapable of helping me through this, but I'm so completely and utterly alone that I still need you."

I haven't seen hereditary, but I did want to share my thoughts of Midsommer. I never thought we were supposed to care about Dani and Christians relationship. Her fate was sealed in the first 15 minutes, and we are just watching it play out. Yes, the film is in Danis perspective, but we are seeing her the way the cult does, and also wants Dani to see herself... a blank, hurting, misunderstood woman in need of connection. The tragedy and emotional crux for me was never Danis romantic life, it was her familial one. She brutally looses her family, all she has left of that is a man she KNOWS doesn't care about her anymore. She doesn't care about that right now, she needs and wants connection. The cult signifies that deep heartfelt connection, even in a ritual suicide, It MEANS something there. All it meant back home was that she was going to be alone. Dani choosing to kill Christian is signifying her detachment from her old life, and the willingness to have family agian that she also KNOWS are unhinged, but are there for her. It makes the deaths of her own family look like they mean more then tragedy. We don't see much of Danis relationship with her own family, other then she may have been very protective of her sister, being her rock, and possibly having well meaning but emotionally absent parents.... which sounds like Christian. That is what Dani thinks love is, well meaning, but emotionally absent she knows this isnt the same. But she clings to it as its all she has now. Her other kind of love is being an emotional rock for others, this is what she was trying to get Christian to be, which he tried a little, but in the end neither got what they needed. The cult did provide however. In a sick and twisted way, they became her rock, they gave her families deaths meaning, they lifted and celebrated her when the world burned down around her, literally and figuratively. Danis fate was always sealed. Never because of romance, but becuase of family. We are watching her slip down a steep slope of grief and hoping she can catch herself before she falls and let's it take over. Then, instead of slowing down, she dives into it. Each step we can see certain cult members acting like sisters, brothers, mothers would to her. Reminding her boyfriend of her birthday, in thier room and breaking down without having to say a word, encouraging her to let loose and party a little. All the while we are seeing Danis hallucinations of her family play in the backgrounds, hidden from us, but are apparent in her psyche. Christian was a jerkish character, yes, but also very realistic. He doesn't want this relationship, but he also doesn't want to hurt Dani more then she has, even if it would make him look bad. He's just a guy, with jerky friends, stuck in that cycle many young men get in. He's a normal stereotype of men women deal with constantly in the dating scene. Not ready or willing to grow. The tragedy of Dani is her choosing more and more toxic relationships searching for connection rather then working on herself. The cult takes full advantage of that.

Lots of comments are making great points. I'd like to add that Dani and Christian were a relationship that began in college. For imperfect people to find each other and date all through college even though their relationship isn't all that meaningful is totally realistic. And Dani's imperfection is not her trauma, it's how she channels her trauma: by ignoring problems. She's all alone, with her only way of ignoring that being someone who doesn't care about her, but they stay together because they are so attached. This is entirely believable to me. I've been through and witnessed relationships that are built on attachment, not love. For me, I don't need to believe that characters love each other for good and honest reasons to understand their attachment, especially characters who started dating when they were teenagers. I think the analysis in this video misses out on how common this type of codependency is.

I watched Hereditary in theatres. At that car scene I remember hearing others gasp (including me) then complete SILENCE. You could have heard an ant's heartbeat. The theatre wasn't even loud before that scene or anything but it was like everyone just froze, and started holding their breath. Ive never experienced that in a movie theatre before. Was pretty cool

When me and my dad watched Hereditary for the first time, before the paimon stuff was revealed he thought that the movie was about annie. That she actually did kill peter and charlie ( and herself) with the paint thinner and that the she was in hell. I love this concept so much and feel like it could have been a better twist

First two minutes in, and i get so many conflicted messages... -I love and respect director! -This movies frustrated me! -You know, sometimes you watching bad movies, and deep inside there is a good movie? -This movies are not bad! They good, but they have potential to be great! -Now lets start and i will tell you why they focking terrible! Dude! WTF?! :D

Meep you missed one thing, Dani lost her entire family so she only had christian left THAT and her yearning for what once was is the only reason she wants him still but she slowly develops a new family at midsommar and slowly moves on that is why she sacrifices him evem though she actually does not want to.

Well, I don't know if I agree with you. I LIKED that the movie picked up at the end of their relationship. They are at a point where, yes, I'm sure they were in love with each other, but NOW... they're beyond that. There is no spark left. There is really no hint of why you fell in love to begin with left. They can't even realistically fake it at this point, let alone drudge up enough genuine feeling for each other. I've BEEN in a relationship like that. Where you Know there is no future together, you don't even Want a future together, but you are just too comfortable (or lazy, however you want to look at it) to want to go through any big life changes. It's just easier to try not to upset the apple cart. I thought it was smart, and Much more realistic to show their relationship where they are now, as opposed to stuffing in a bunch of hammy scenes of their past love. I certainly wouldn't have wanted flashbacks, for God's sake. Anyway, that's just what I took from the movie.

as someone w c-ptsd midsommar felt so true to the experience of trauma and i felt so deeply for dani's character

Nah, bro. You're missing the point of the ending of Hereditary. It doesn't undercut the events of the film, it reveals what was really underlying the whole time that you couldn't quite put your finger on. It's a magic trick. You saw the signs the whole time, but you didn't really know you saw it. It should become more impressive with every watch. If it gets worse, then you do not adore the movie. You actually didn't get it at all.

Really great video! I somewhat disagree with your analysis, especially in regards to the father in Hereditary. I think that he's definitely out of focus compared to the other characters, but he serves as a necessary neutral voice of reason, with little moments (going on medication due to the stress, his small, quiet breakdown while picking up his son) bringing a great deal of pathos to an otherwise utilitarian role. But even then, great work! Keep it going.

I think this video's analysis of Hereditary is fundamentally flawed, in that it takes the events of the ending at face value. Throughout Hereditary, the narrative element of the family's mental illness is breadcrumb-dropped multiple times. It's even in the name, Hereditary: you could argue the demon is being inherited, but that doesn't really make sense with the plot, as the grandmother was more grooming the grandchildren for possession. The title and the ending make much more sense if you see Hereditary as a story of undiagnosed generational mental illness. Toni Colette's character directly references her mother's schizophrenia, and throughout the movie begins to see things and fall into paranoia and delusion. The same can be said about her son. It is notable that the only character who is completely without paranormal encounter is the father, not a blood relative to the grandmother - apart from his fiery death, which the audience likely sees through Toni Colette's perspective and on rewatch has multiple suspicious elements surrounding it. Through the lens of mental illness, the ending becomes not a generic rehashing of Rosemary's Baby with the attribution of the film's events put onto an unseen external demon, but rather the succumbing of a family to their own delusions, the family having literally torn themselves apart.

Hereditary to me was always “great actors, great characters, great direction, great dialogue, but absolutely no plot.”

You missed the point. He hit it on the head. Sometimes when your in a relationship you know it’s not going to work and still stay. Sooo… You saying that the audience knows it’s not goin to work from the beginning… kind of the point.

What is it with people saying stuff as a criticism and it's like a major point to the film's themes, like yeah, the relationship was toxic, no person would stay in that EXCEPT for people who are traumatized, so it resonated with people like us who got stuck in those relationships with an abusive partner but feared losing the one person that maybe could love you at times.

Nice points, but I think you miss out on something that will make you look at Midsommar's ending completely differently. For me, the reason why Dani struggles so hard at the end to choose between two people to die is never because she cares for Christian. No, she absolutely has no will to save Christian by the end of it and just wants to flee the cult with or without him. So why does she struggle? Like I said, she wants to flee the cult! At that point, to her, there's still a teeny weeny bit of chance to escape, by geting Christian back! Unsound plan? Of course! Dani realizes that too. At the end, it is more than obvious to her that the cult wants her to choose Christian (to save their own blood) and wants her to join the "family" (to bring in new blood). They even explain the whole thing in English for Dani to understand and even say that they will "wait patiently for the fair queen". They planned her struggle too! So at that point she has two options, first, save Christian and gain a slightly more chance on escaping through the number and get a massive chance of getting both killed instantly by the cult. Second, join the cult. Which one sounds more plausible? This also explains her smile at the end. At first she's grieving at the inevitable, i.e. joining a f**king cult! But later she finds the only way to cope with things now is to accept. This is an extreme case of Stockholm Syndrome where the captor is a cult and where the captive doesn't have any choice at all!

Fucking insane that you are under 100 subs. You're gonna blow up soon, and I can't wait to watch it happen. These are well made and very entertaining videos under your belt. Keep it up!

Man no. H is about questioning reality and M is about rationalization and indoctrination. These movies don’t need Tarantino dialogue because the subject matter is more important. The point was to show the steps between normalcy and depravity. In H you wonder if the thing on screen is actually happening or a delusion caused by grief and guilt. It concludes brilliantly by showing us that unavoidable doom is unavoidable. The story changes according to the ending. M is about vulnerability and how much of a disadvantage it is in the face of evil. Like the audience, she is slowly fed discomforts, each one worse than the last until she embraces her new status quo. These movies would have been terrible with strong characters or different endings. Just because they don’t check a few boxes of conventional filmmaking doesn’t mean they aren’t masterpieces. I would argue that it’s what makes them masterpieces.

Thank you SO much for this video because I've had a "problem" with Midsommar ever since I first watched it and I finally realized what that "problem" is. I absolutely love this film for many reasons, however I also felt that something was off with the writing and I never really understood what, but watching your video it made me realize something about Midsommar (and Hereditary too). The endings of these films feel like fairytales or storybook endings, the results of a domino effect that started at the beginning of the movie (Grandma's death/Dani's family death), a result etched in stone, unavoidable. They feel like they're teaching some kind of morals but for adults, like "don't sacrifice the happiness and well-being off your descendants or others for your own gains" and "let people help you when you're stuck in a hurtful mental situation", but they're done in the most brutal, violent and hyperbolic ways possible. When Dani must learn to put her own need before others, the movie literally kills her toxic partner. When the Graham family must pay the debt of their elder, it's to a demonic god who will possess the mother, choose one kid as an avatar and kill the other and also kill the father because he's useless ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The problem is that the presentation is very "realistic" and doesn't really "rhyme" or "vibe" with the hyperbolic fate of the characters. It's especially jarring because of the actors' raw performances. The emotional rawness, clashes with what I can only describe as a new modern horror campiness, that either ; - wants a dissonance between what it tells and how it tells it, - or is too afraid to embrace the ridiculous and absurdity of fantastic horror, like "my family owes a soul to Satan :)" I remember Collette's and Pugh's gut wrenching performances, the emotional agony of their characters, portrayed with painful accuracy and when their movies ended I was like "Oh... it's... over...?", there was no climax (not a bad thing) and I felt a bit empty afterwards, even Dani's final smile made me go "Good for her !", then "Good for her ?", and finally "Oh fuck, she's damaged beyond repair", next time I watch the movie I'll probably say to myself something like "Is this what transcendence looks like ?". Dani's ending is initially climactic but when I watched it again, or thought about it, I only had questions concerning the nature of that smile (not a bad thing either but it's debatable if it was intended as questionable). Like for the Graham's, Dani's story arc is out of her hands. The grandmother kinda bequeathed Paymon to her descendants, so Annie, Peter and Charlie were all essentially f*cked ever since birth, and Dani was locked in a undesirable situation by her own neurosis, trauma, emotional turmoil and toxic/uncaring close circle. On paper, the starting point is a perfect recipe for a arduous series of interpersonal back-and-forth and powerful dynamic with a dash of supernatural dangers to spice it all up and to force confrontations (and Hereditary give breadcrumbs of this) but overall story is deadly focused taking these characters' agency away and beating the shit out them, that's frustrating and the worst part is I feel like I can't even criticize the movie for it because \That's the joke/ This tonal dissonance reminds me of probably one of my favorite horror movie The Babadook, where the conflict is started by a literal storybook and the antagonistic force is the character of that storybook. The movie feels itself like a storybook but even though the presentation is serious, realistic and somber, I feel like The Babadook succeeds in navigating the gap between the absurdity of the horrific events and the family drama, making it a fairytale for adults. I think it's thanks to it's cinematography, hopeful ending, the agency of the characters, and the fact that it's aware of its own absurdity (case and point the title of the movie itself). Absurdity is good, it's all around us, and the most impactful pieces of media (for me) are the ones that embrace their own absurdity (prime example being Everything Everywhere All At Once), absurdity as a style has a lot of potential and I'd love to see more creators explore it, especially in horror. I think what I really take out of this video is ; - is having "flat" characters essentially bad ? ; - how can you navigate a tonal dissonance ? ; - how to use absurd events or entities inherent in supernatural horror ? ; - and more importantly, what the f*ck do I emotionally do with Dani's final smile ? Sorry for the tangents and disconnected points, I think that's something I will explore on my own and my brain still hasn't fully process this new perspective but I felt the need to share this because this video opened a door in my brain to a lot of things haha. PS : Christian IS hot and I won't let anyone say otherwise. He is trash, like proper trash, spineless, dickish, abusive on a frustrating and heartbreaking banal way... but he is also hot...........ᶦ'ᵐ ᵈᵃᵐᵃᵍᵉᵈ

To this day no one has been able to make satanic cults genuinely scary to me. They always come off as comedically evil. As soon as this elderly white woman explained what they were doing it just became funny, which I don't think Ari was going for. Even after understanding that everything that happens is real within the context of the movie, the rational part of my brain still goes "lmfao y'all actually believe this shit?" as soon as they start "hailing Paimon". Hereditary was the most unnerving upsetting horror film I'd ever seen up until that last scene.

Hereditary's ending was amazing in my opinion. It paid off what we were being sold the entire film. The flip side to this would have been the grandma and her cult worshiping a demon that doesn't actually exist and ultimately would have had no bearing on the outcome of the film. Ultimately that would have just made a massive amount of the film arbitrary and would have made the supernatural occurrences make absolutely no sense. Why would the husband have caught fire? Why would the seance have worked? Why would the lightpole, marked by the cult, have been the exact spot of Charlie's decapitation? A decapitation that, according to the cult, was necessary as the grandmother had given Charlie's physical body over to Paimon as a baby. Charlie needed to die in order for Paimon to be released to a new physical body. All of this would have just been coincidental and arbitrary devil worship if Paimon didn't exist within the world of the film. And if Paimon exists within the world of the film, then he acts as the major driving force behind all the horrendous stuff that happens to this family. I forget exactly what Greek Tragedy they were talking about in Peter's class, but essentially that's what this movie was going for. Paimon and the cult used this family purely as a way to possess a male body, which from the beginning of the film is made incredibly clear as the grandmother's goal (trying to breastfeed Peter, etc.). Having the film's main antagonist never appear would be an insane choice and would have left myself, and I'm sure many others, with a sense of in-completion.

I didn’t care for Midsommar but… with Hereditary, at what point would you have wanted the movie to end? Before the mom is possessed? before we see the cult members in the background? or just remove all the cult references and the ending from even before she was possessed? I loved it I thought it was great stuff even if the cult stuff could seem like easy cop out, I think it fits for the type of story it’s telling. Midsommar… so much potential, and the ending was ok bc she’s the victim and the perpetrator but it was a little too whiny and man hating for me bc her boyfriend got drugged and raped, and is shown to be the bad guy? He was literally drugged and raped and we saw it, it’s not even ambiguous.

3:18 Annie didn’t watch Charlie die. She found her headless body in the car the next day. Peter was the only one who witnessed Charlie’s death.

Bad relationship, and Christian's 2nd-biggest mistake is being too weak-willed to break up when he's clearly not committed. But his biggest mistake is letting Dani invite herself along on the trip. That gets him killed. I dunno, that punishment seems disproportionate. Tedious movie with wildly gyrating moral compass, but at least Ari Aster got to work through his emotions in a purgative ceremony, similar to Burning Man origin story with even some of that same flaming pagan energy.

I think that there are a few things that I don't think anyone has been covering about Midsommar. Christian's character is indeed a a**hole. But as individuals watching the movie we can only see that from an outside perspective looking in. We're not seeing just how much he's stuck around and dealt with all of Dani's hardships. And how long it may have took for him to become desensitized and just completely burnt out from the relationship that can never seem to get good no matter what. None of these are Dani's fault of course, and that's why, even though he is so tired of being in the relationship, and just wishes it would go away, he stays because he doesn't want to feel guilty for leaving someone behind that's going through so much. If you ever really had to go through something like that before you could understand just how difficult that situation can be. It's not just so easy to just break up and leave in those circumstances. (Unless you are a cold-hearted bastard haha). We really feel for Dani and sympathize with her of course but maybe we also sympathise with her a little bit different than Christian can because well, we're not actually there dealing with it day-in and day-out for months and even years like Christian has. Her struggle is new to us. And though I don't condone him being so cold, we have no right judging him through a situation we are freshly walking into while he has been at her beck and call for so long. Dani even makes a point to mention that in the beginning of the film and that she was worried that Christian would finally get tired and leave. He never just man's up and leaves because he would feel too guilty to do so because of her situation. So instead he grows cold, to draw her away and maybe in the back of his mind hoping that she would just get upset, tired and begin to hate him and leave him instead. It's definitely a toxic relationship but in this situation, I'm sure many people would accidentally do many of the same actions. I just like everyone else who watches the film (at least I'm assuming) feels more on Dani side and is rooting for Dani throughout the film. But we are actually left with no choice being on the outside looking in. Their relationship and struggles are new to us just like the experience they have going to this odd strange swedish cult. It looks one way on the outside with unseen depths and hidden truths within. Shocking them with realization as they journey through.

I always saw Midsommar as a relationship that wasn't dying, but dead. The only thing that kept it together was the death of Dani's family. We are watching as an outside party, looking at a relationship that, from what we can see, needs to end, because its helping neither party. Thats why we feel relieved when she finally makes the decision to kill Christian herself. She found it in her to admit to herself it was dead long ago and doing her no good.

That ending in hereditary felt like a cop out honestly.

14:29 the lady in white is CLEARLY more interested in whats on her phone then anything coming out of Ari Aster's mouth 🤦🏾‍♀️

I couldn't agree more regarding Midsommar's critique. I think it's a very original, memorable, visually striking movie and Florence acting was great. But I can't really recommend it because of how one dimensional the characters are. They were not only uninteresting but also really shallow and their actions weren't believable so I was never really involved in the movie because I was constantly reminded that it was fiction, the characters simply didn't feel real. Plus, it was quite long so I got a bit bored. I always fully recommend Hereditary, which was really good, and say that the director has another horror movie which is fine and even worth the watch even if I don't consider it actually good.

I think the reason that the characters in Midsommar felt so one dimensional lies within the explanation that Ari Aster gives as the sole theme of the movie. He reflected himself onto Dani through a breakup experience he had and it is hard to view a breakup in a neutral perspective if you were part of that breakup. So, by projecting his experiences through his characters, they come off as one dimensional and flat.

imagine coming after a genius and being so oblivious to his craft. ur meeptop on youtube a position that with no qualifications.

Anyways, regarding Midsommar I get what Aster wants, make us hate the victims and be blinded by the cult to make a point about their manipulation. But as a writing student I'm literally taught that you can tell a good story without a complex, deep message, but you cannot turn a message into a good story without characters as props. Even if Dani is dear to you, all the other props are as weak as a thin Made In China plastic headband. Junji Ito's short stories generally has a better developped cast then this 2 hours+ movie.

The characters in Hereditary were "grounded" but the Dad "was just kinda there"? He was the character trying to hold the family together. Watch it again and try to get a feel for ALL the characters, not just the principles.

I think you make a great point of Dani being the “idealized version of a grieving person.” 19:40 like you said she’s not doing anything “selfish” or “hurtful” without justification. To me that seems like a big cat-cradle dynamic of her similarities with the cult’s culture. She extends herself into the cult in such a similar way to her relationship with her boyfriend. We see off the bat Dani feels she’s in a desperate need to be a people pleaser, that her feelings r being disrespected and swept under the rug right before her sister and parents die. Dani makes no justification for those emotional pitfalls that are expected after loosing her family in a traumatic way. 1. She gives into peer pressure & takes the shrooms thanks to the friend group. 2She is so used to this pattern of consistently being let down/ shut out. Having a barrier of this intimacy with her relationship, which was expressed earlier in the film by Dani’s friend on the phone as she reads her sisters email. I Believe the point of Ari not providing more insight to the twos relationship was to seriously highlight this. , that is progressively turned around as the characters sink further into the Cults Grasp, not in the typical theater way we expect though. The community idolizes Dani, cries with her even after she witnesses the mating ritual. Palae takes a major interest in her, and is togging/ hinting her fate as the storyline persists. Her emotions are progressively validated as the flim goes on, No through her already existing circle of support and love but the foreign, mysterious, utopian external. It’s a pretty accurate depiction of how people get so caught up and devote their lives to cultism. towards the end she is put in a position of power as May queen we finally get that blissful moment of her experiencing emotional fulfillment & validation in the mist of her setting her ex boyfriend on fire. I think in a lot of ways that build up is what’s so enticing & adds to her dimension as a character. She’s placed in a position of power & respect. One that she was Greatly lacking before. Her rage, anger, emotions feel safe enough for her to justify her heavy cut throat decisions. It’s a wonderful development to watch.

Got to disagree on Hereditary. There is no Scooby-doo ending. From the very first scenes five minutes in there are hints as to what is going on the whole time. The glyph on the necklace, markings on the floor, visual clues, even the soundtrack all telegraph rather largely what is going on. The music for example uses brass instruments, the demon Paimon's appearance is supposed to be proceeded by the blaring of horns. I happened to be studying demonology at the time (I not a weirdo or a believer, it was just a curiosity) and the movie had me giggling at how clever the hints were every 5 minutes. It was advertising pretty hard in every way. It sort of ruined the "surprise" but I still enjoyed it. When viewed with a little bit of knowledge on the subject you appreciate it in a different way. Rather than an seeming change of direction, the movie is a methodical, inevitable manipulation of circumstances by a subtle power from beyond at the edge of perception. The poor family is clueless while you as an informed viewer sort of revel at how everything aligns perfectly for the demon summoning at the end. The director doesn't get every detail right but a lot of inspiration is taken straight out of "The lesser key of Solomon" or anything by Johann Weyer.

I feel like we watch totally different movies bc I get exactly what Ari Aster wanted to portray.

The True Horror of Midsommar is that it's about Dani, a girl so vulnerable and alone, that she gets hooked into a Fascist Cult Community that she's now trapped in by the end of the movie.

Oh man, this is an L take. There's a great 4 hour long video on the lore of this movie. It's so much more than you're giving it credit 😅

"And the dad is just- There." considering that i completely forgot the dad was a character, i'd say /barely/ there

How in the world did you show that scene of the girl's head being ripped off three times without getting demonetized? Holy moly

I think something that's missed in the video is that Dani is a conflict averse personality type by virtue of the trauma she has faced. She is so fearful of being hurt again that she allows Christian to walk all over her because in exchange she receives some level of emotional protection. This is a common personality type in real life that's shown in people who experienced severe trauma. I think the ending is wonderful because she allows herself to inflict pain on the person that inflicted so much additional trauma to her that she starts to realise she is powerful again and can now move on with her life and shed the baggage of the past.

I think you’re 100% spot on. His films are flawed despite him being a master filmmaker.

My biggest issue with Hereditary, even tho I liked it, was that... you know, a little girl was beheaded, and the family continued their lives just like that... like... Shouldn't there be investigators or attorneys trying to find out what happened with that girl? Why didn't they go for the head of the girl? Why didn't Peter go to therapy having a father who was a specialist in mental health? ... Like, why don't they call the police about the events surrounding the family? How did this cult manage to achieve their goal of having this girl killed in a car accident that wasn't even intentional? Like... DUDE! When it comes to Midsommar... It was too long, and I feel a lot of scenes were actually fillers... like, for no reasons. When Mark, Simon and Connie's dead bodies were shown, I didn't recognize them, so I didnt' know what was going on... PLUS, you can see one of the camera tracks while they're taking Mark and Connie's bodies to that yellow piramid to be burnt. XOXO PLUS, it was highly predictable and boring. XOXO

Midsommer is about a CULT CULT CULT CULT CULTC CULT CUTL CUTL CUTK CCULT

Late to the party here but I felt the same way. I was thinking that maybe all the supernatural stuff wasn't real and it was just the mental breakdown of guilt and trauma and then it was an actual cult and I enjoyed the ride, but I was just kinda "oh, cult, okay."

What's strange about this revue is that it dwells almost EXCLUSIVELY with the character development and personal relationships in both movies, and virtually ignores the 'horror' aspects. It FAULTS 'Midsomer' for this lack. It praises 'Hereditary' for this characteristic, but pillories its cliched denouement. In my book, this means that neither is worth watching. It's precisely the gratuitous horror aspects shared by both which draws the paying audiences. The secret to Aster's success: the ratio between small production/development costs and large ticket revenues.

i was with you until you called dani one dimentional. i think a lot of women who watched this film can understand dani in a way that makes her feel like she IS us. dani is the product of christian's emotional abuse. ive never had a movie put me into a character's perspective more. you see and feel these awful, awful things happen to her, and you and her are forced to *not* feel it. everything is brushed over and you and dani aren't given a chance to process these soul crushing events. everyone around her is conditioning her to accept awful things, and they just keep getting worse, and she just keeps having to act like its normal. what wins dani over, finally, and what makes us think for a moment, while watching it, that we would stay with the cult and kill christian, is when they let dani feel. they let her scream and cry, and they scream and cry with her, and dani's and our emotions are collectively acknowledged for the first time in the film. we're given time to process and grieve with dani, and all the other women like her, living in this cult. the people around dani are one dimensional in a way. we see them how they show themselves to dani. we don't get to, or need to see more. we get a limited view of them, so we can accept them being killed. our limited knowledge of these other characters mirrors the way a cult will justify their actions by turning you against people you know. they all sucked, but none objectively deserved the deaths they got. none of us were particularily heartbroken when they died in horrifying ways, because dani wasn't attached to them, or she had complex feelings about them. the people dani loved, her family, were the only deaths that were truly haunting and worthy of grief to the viewer. we never even saw them alive on screen, and we were only told bad things about her sister. yet, because dani is us, those deaths were the only ones which felt that heartbreaking.

So I personally didn’t mind the whole Paimon portion of the movie. I actually quite enjoyed it. To me, Paimon (while yes, a demonic force) also was representative of Annie’s (Toni Collette) generational trauma passed to her by her mother. She literally inherited the curse of both a demonic pact, as well as possibly mental diseases. And I also find it interesting that Toni Collette is the only character in the movie that commits suicide. Almost as if it’s a warning of what happens when trauma and disease can lead to if untreated, avoided and isolated. The whole part at the end then can almost be seen as Peter (Nat Wolff i think?) now having to live in a world where, yes he’s cared for by the people around him, but he himself is an empty shell after the several traumatic events that have taken place throughout the past few months. That’s a really short amount of time to lose your entire family one by one. I think there’s also something interesting about the fact that the only thing we hear from Peter at the end is the infamous clicking noise his sister (Milly Shapiro) used to make. I can’t quite verbalize what I think it means, but I think there’s something super significant about that, aside from the “oh my sister is part of this twisted parody of the trinity.” I think we would really lose something if the demonic cult throughout this film was lost. Deep levels of grief can lead to an absolutely horrifying life, especially when survivor’s guilt comes into the picture.

Hereditary is dark af. Midsommar is much more optimistic, if you will.

Hereditary for me has a very solid first half and meh second part. Midsommar is less powerful than that first half but overall more cohesive and works better for me.

I felt Hereditary’s ending undermined the rest of the movie for me 🤷‍♀️

hereditary. Nothing like those wild parties teens have with the drinking, the making out, the puking and let's not forget the cookies? That's when I dipped out. I watched the whole thing but, C'mon man, cookies? "Are those weed cookies?" "No, they are an old recipe called Plot convenience cookies."

What got me about the movies is that people seem to overlook the fact that Hereditary is essentially a reskin of Rosemarys Baby and Midsommer is a ripoff of The Wicker Man

Funny how someone who dont know shit bout moviemaking, wants to rewrite masterpieces. Its ok to not to love a movie. But imagine walking into the Louvre and saying mona lisa is missing something cause YOU dont like it

I find this video really interesting, I think you make some good points here, and I respect the validity of your opinions. But personally I don't view Dani as one-note or "too perfect" at all. IMO her flaws are heavily rooted in the very core of the film. She's insecure, she lacks the confidence to act decisively on her own, and she can be overly emotionally dependent on others. The fact that she's so selfless and empathetic is just the flipside of her flaws, and if anything, I would say that in Midsommar we're seeing the "flaw" side of her selflessness more than the "virtue" side. We literally begin the movie with a scene in which who she is and why she is that way is illustrated to us in the most horrifying and devastating way possible: She has received a deeply troubling message from her notoriously unstable sister, and her parents aren't picking up the phone, but she remains frozen in indecision. She doesn't want to make trouble or inconvenience anyone unnecessarily or come off as too histrionic by demanding that her fears be taken seriously when they may turn out to be nothing. She feels in her gut that she should act, but instead she calls her friend, and then her boyfriend, to soothe herself with their presence, to get their perspective, and on some level, to seek validation for not acting. She's the "good" child in the family, the one who doesn't make trouble, the one who helps smooth over all the turmoil and damage her emotionally taxing and profoundly unstable sister creates. So she remains frozen in indecision...and then the cops come. I am in no way saying Dani bears ANY responsibility for her parents' deaths; she doesn't. And frankly, I find Dani's dread and inaction in the opening scene incredibly relatable. My point is merely that as an opening scene it very clearly established her character, her flaws and weaknesses as well as her strengths, and even the conditions under which those traits developed. The rest of the film, and the dynamic she has with Christian, is just an extension of that, except that where in the opening scene we are seeing a Dani who has always worked hard to keep her feelings of neediness and insecurity as concealed as possible, after the events of the opening scene her ability to do that begins to fail. She's always been afraid to be alone, but in the wake of the opening scene the thought of being alone with all her grief and horror has become unbearable. So we see a Dani whose need to self-minimize (in order to not give Christian any reason to leave) is immense, but whose underlying emotional dependency (i.e. desperation for any scraps of emotional connection she can get) has become impossible to conceal. There's no question that Christian is a crappy boyfriend, and an immature, selfish person. But I also never question why Dani is with him. Nor do I think she is 100% the wronged party in their relationship. (She's like 90% the wronged party.) I think she is far, FAR more sympathetic than Christian is, but I think it's also fairly apparent that she is aware, on some level, that Christian doesn't really want to be there (in the relationship) but feels obligated to stay. And yet she clings to their relationship all the tighter, because she's terrified to be alone--which is it's own kind of selfishness, albeit a far more complicated and sympathetic kind of selfishness than Christian's IMO. I have my own issues with Midsommar, and my own reasons for feeling it is flawed, but none of them are Dani and Christian's characterizations, or the way their relationship dynamic is written--all of which feels quite nuanced and realistic to me, albeit in a very unhappy and mundane kind of way.

People are shining shit and calling it Gold... To be fair, both movies are not completely terrible but just complete "I want to live in an era of something special" overrated. Midsommar is a glorified Wicker man. Predictable and very shallow. It's an adolescent slasher dressed up - that's the level of dramatic depth and plot complexity really. Wanna see a good horror movie look east.

Speaking as a Swede, none of this is remotely related to Swedish Midsommar, it wasnt even filmed in Sweden.

You're right this hereditary scares tf out of me. The grief is palatable. The little model homes that Toni Collette's character makes was creepy asf. Knocking Charley's had off was freaking terrible.

Few things about this video: all over the place and keep repeating and you love and respect but also trash it - completely up and down

I stopped this video halfway through to actually go watch Midsummer for the first time and as a film student I can't agree with you more. The visuals are incredible and it's overall an amazing movie but it has so much more potential

Midsummer - yes. To build on that thought, the ill- explained relationship makes me like Dani less. How are we supposed to see her as a victim- turned triumphant when she's not a victim? She can choose to simply leave the relationship, as he would prefer, instead of ignoring the red flag and forcing a square peg into a round hole. She's not a victim, so the ending isn't satisfying.

I think an interesting idea that kind of changes things a bit with the ending of Hereditary is that it might not be directly Paimon's doing. If you look into the eyes of Peter at the end after Paimon has possessed him you see nothing but fear. Why would Paimon, an interdimensional being beyond human comprehension want to be stuffed into the limiting sack of meat that is a human? What if he was just as terrified as Peter was before he got possessed? If you look at things from that angle the movie isn't just summed up as "lol Satan I mean Paimon did it." But a cult of people worshipping him were antagonists not only to the main family, but of the very demon they were worshipping as well.

I enjoyed your analysis, but I'll have to disagree with you. Without the demon cult shit, Hereditary wouldn't even be a horror film. They're metaphors for mental illnesses and generatonal trauma. And Midsommar is more about the desperation Dani feels, like all she has left is her shitty boyfriend so she clings to him in her grief because without him, shell be alone -- and thats how she gets converted into joining the cult. Without these aspects of the stories, they just wouldn’t hit the spot. I feel like these tropes make the stories more palatable. Otyerwise, it would feel too real, and I dont want to like actually feel fear and dread.i just want an adrenaline rush with a compelling story

In Midsomar, I don't think you have to buy their relationship, you have to buy that she "needed" him only because she lost her family.

With midsommar, I always believed we were supposed to hold on to the point the Dani has no one else. As much as you hate the relationship, it would completely destroy Dani one last time if the only person she had left dumped her. It’s the feeling of wanting it to stay together until Dani can move on from her grief enough to find new people to hold on to.

I think you're missing something important about Midsommar, which is that, yes, their relationship is garbage and that's clear the whole time, but *people do stay in relationships like this*. You spend the whole movie waiting for one of them to just accept and admit that it needs to be over, and at the end you're in the fucked up position of having the catharsis of it finally ending being the result of her seeing over his immolation and her absorption into a cult as her being "free" from it. Their terrible relationship is the (well, one of, and the primary remaining) reason she gets pulled in. She goes from being absolutely disgusted by these people to presiding over their ritual because she sees sacrificing him as her freedom. It's about how hard it is (for some people) to let themselves get out of abusive and toxic relationships; until she was sucked into a cult she was never able to finally escape that cycle of accepting that shitty relationship over and over, and maybe she never would have. I have a lot of women friends who repeatedly dive into cycles of abuse like this and have so much self loathing and disconnection that they keep staying until it's unbearable, so to me, the fact that it took being crowned in a death cult to finally give her the strength to move on from that obviously horrible relationship is extremely poignant. I see now I'm not the only person who's made this point lol

Im not understanding why the occult reveal at the end of hereditary is just bad. Its woven through out the movie and the real pleasure of rewatching is seeing how he plots all of the details perfectly along the way.

Honestly your criticisms are the strengths of these movies in my opinion. As far as midsommar goes, the tension of knowing the relationship is doomed from the start is depicting exactly what it’s like to look back at your failed relationship.

I grew up in a cult and lost my brother to suicide (when we were both still kids). I've never seen a more accurate depiction of what those experiences were like than Midsommar...let alone in one movie

I did not miss any multilayeredness in Christian's character, quite the opposite: I doubt the film would even work with him being overly sympathyzable. He isn't even a true villain, he is just a mediocre selfish coward. Yet he grabs our attention and disdain so fully, that we consider the only true villain in the movie - the serene, cunning, wire-pulling Pelle - a worthwhile alternative or even a saviour. And we even consider siding with Dani and her bloodthirsty "family" when Christian is immolated as a literal scapegoat (scapebear?) for the community's unfathomable evil. We consider Dani "liberated" when she has irreversibly sacrificed her only true need: genuine self-love, independence and the power to stand up for herself. To me Midsommar is a masterpiece on how the avoidance of ambiguity, moral uncertainty and genuine independence make us susceptible to ideological (including fascist) indoctrination. We want the darkness contained while we hallucinate purity - just like the sun never sets on Hårga.

I like that she is flat. Trauma does that to you. You're 24/7 living in between worlds (the present and the PTSD symptoms) and you lose yourself, your personality, everything. You're just sad and jumpy and scared all the time and unable to make any kind of decision because you know you're not in a place to make life altering moves, even if you hate where you are. You're miserable but miserable Is "safe".

I totally get a lot of what you're saying about Midsommar, but I also feel like you're missing a few things. When watching Midsommar, I felt like Dani had a fear of being alone, especially after what she went through. I don't think she wanted to go through that alone. It's made evident that Dani wants someone to lean on, and while she recognizes that Christian might not be that, she's been so gaslit into thinking that her emotions are too much and that she shouldn't lean as much as she does. I also felt like the story was more of a comparison between her relationship with Christian and her relationship with the cult. Dani is emotionally vulnerable, and the cult gave her the support she craved. It's obvious manipulation to us, but to Dani, it's like family; they support each other, lean on each other, and acknowledge her emotions. I think the ending was also a bit misinterpreted. I don't think it's so much about just getting out of a toxic relationship. I think it's more about how susceptible you become to manipulation when grieving and finding the support you longed for after you didn't have it for a long time. In the end, she traded in one toxic relationship for another one, and that's what really hit hard for me.

For me, the supernatural plot in Hereditary is still a metaphor for mental illness, how it can consume you and make you a different person, essentialy just like Paimon controlling the family members

I think the point of their relationship in midsommar is that you shouldn’t be rooting for the relationship at all, Dani should not be with him, he has no redeeming qualities he’s an ass and she should hate him, but he’s the only person she has left so she just can’t let it go. It’s less she wants to be with him and more she has to been with him. She can’t lose him because she’s lose EVERYTHING else, so she’s gonna overlook every single thing he does. She doesn’t love him she doesn’t like him, she needs him to not leave her and because of that she can’t fully state or recognize his shitty behavior. I think as a viewer it’s good to completely hate him and not see a single redeeming quality because it makes you question why she’s with him and then realize it’s because she needs him and cannot even imagine being alone, and when she has a “family” in the end she finally realizes she no longer needs to be with him.

I'll be honest and overshare a little, but Hereditary absolutely speaks to me in a horrifying way. If it were just a movie about family issues then it wouldn't creep me out as much, and the reason for this is that I always suffered from heavy depression and bpd, but... I grew up thinking those things were results from demonic influences, since my family was always christian. I always have this fear of it really being a demon tormenting me, even if I'm currently agnostic, since having your entire life being controlled by an evil entity is a pretty despair inducing concept. This movie shows us this, and it's not just a case of possession, this prince of hell is literally manipulating the entire lives of this family, and it's so hopeless that one could almost say it's cosmic horror. You just feel so small.

I will say that I don't think Dani's character fell flat. As someone who has experienced a traumatic, sudden loss, and been sucked into religion to fix that, she was deeply relatable. She suffers countless dissociations, and seems flat, or empty, because of this, but so did I! So I'd make the argument that she is a much deeper character than you would think. Dani's struggles are accurate to the experience of losing a massive part of you.

If the supernatural elements weren’t in hereditary. It’d be a dramatic tragedy. It really wouldn’t be horror anymore

I was ready to totally dismiss this as like “I’m not like the other girls” ari aster hate, but you made a lot of really great points 😁👍🏾. I don’t think Dani is a Mary Sue though, she’s clearly very anxious, clingy and codependent, I feel like dating her would be exhausting even before her parents were killed by her sister.

the loss of a child, especially a daughter, that hereditary deals with is something that hits way to close to home for me. I've been told by so many people to watch it and from the bits I've seen, it looks brilliant but watching another mother mourn the loss of her daughter is something that I can't do.

3:13 The scene where she’s on the floor, screaming over the discovery of her daughter’s body, was gut-wrenching. As a mom, her wails of pain hurt my heart.

A relationship doesn’t need to prove it’s worth when you’re so immersed in your own trauma and grief. You can cling to a relationship that’s clearly terrible for years and years because you are not processing the trauma that caused you to cling to that relationship in the first place. A relationship can also be super shitty, and you can still grieve it immensely. If your parent was super abusive to you and they pass away, you can still grieve the person you lost because despite how they valued you, you valued them.

I’m not going to lie, I still get chills when I hear the horns from hereditary. It’s still one of my top 5 favorite horror films and really top 5 films in general.

The Paimon part/ending was actually my favorite portion of it. That statue at the end made me more uncomfortable than I've felt in a LONG time watching a movie.

I don't mind that the characters in Midsommar feel one dimensional. With the emotional turmoil that Dani is going through between her family dying and her bad relationship, EVERYTHING feels one dimension. When you're going through that much crap, life is hollow and lost. It seems fitting that, at least the characters, seems empty and one note in that movie. Maybe I'm giving too much credit, but I thought it was great that it all felt weird and out of place, because that's what life feels like in those situations. The end of this movie almost felt like "this is what SHOULD happen" and it feels like you have no choice but to go with it, almost helplessly, but that's what life feels like when you're that emotionally tapped out.

I'm wondering what direction you would have rather had Hereditary go in? I get that cults and demons are a major trope in horror at this point. However, I think it's what a movie does with these familiar territories that redefines the dilemma and gives it a fresh perspective. To me, I don't think the use of demonic forces in this movie is a cop out or crutch but a glue that holds all the layers and complexity together.

Feels like complaining for the sake of complaining. What is the alternative ending for Hereditary you would have preferred? Obviously it was a demon, i don’t see how that is disappointing. What else could have possibly been the explanation for all the weird shit going on? The execution and the twist of it being a set up from the start was great.

This movie made me have a full blown psychotic episode. It just struck way too many cords with me. My family has a bloody history and my abusive father always had occultist beliefs of which he was pretty secretive. For me Hereditary was about the despair and suffering one individual can cause to their loved ones for their own gain, and the horrific aftermath they leave behind, haunting their family even after death. I saw the mother breaking down and being possessed as a clear expression of one of the greatest fears many people from abusive homes have - becoming like their parents. It's even in the title - Hereditary. I don't agree that the film is about the effects of grief alone, but the fact that often that grief is caused by the people meant to be the closest to you, and it takes a horrific journey of self-discovery and sleuthing to reach that realization. A lot of people don't make it through, they succumb to their trauma and perpetuate it to later generations.

The ending of midsommar is perfect. You want dani out of her awful relationship but she wont let it go bc hes all that she has left. But you also see her easily manipulated by and brought further and further into the cult, until they have completely replaced christian in dani's mind as her family. So the ending is meant to elicit the contradictory emotions of "oh yay kill him" and "oh no shes in a cult now!!"

I may be wrong, but my hot take on both movies was that we are seeing the events of the two films from the point of view of the main leads. This is why we get highly opinionated depictions of people because the protagonist sees them as such; if the main character hates someone, then we only see the bad and NONE of the good in that person. On top of that, neither believes they’re in the wrong…so we never see them in that light, even when pieces of the darker parts of their personalities manage to seep through. Again, this is just my interpretation however.

I completely agree with you about Midsommar, but less so about Hereditary. I liked the ending of the latter, which was so bizarre to me that it was legitimately terrifying. Not so much a fear of "the devil," but with cults that have members completely convinced that horrific acts are justified, even joyous.

i feel like if you’ve never been in such a toxic relationship with somebody, the movie won’t impact you as much; the level at which i related with Danny was so scary that i couldn’t stop feeling anxious throughout the whole movie; also, there is this absolutely terrifying feeling of not being understood and supported that is extremely soul crushing when it’s coming from someone who you love this much and the emptiness and loneliness throughout the various scenes between the two really brought up my darkest memories; this movie completely destroyed me and i never want to see it again - THAT is why it’s absolutely perfect and it did its job

I wanted to address the scene you were talking about at 16:21. I don’t even think he was “standing in solidarity with her” from my memory, Christian was like “oh I’m not going to do it if she isn’t”, so everyone automatically blamed Dani for not taking the shrooms because Christian wouldn’t which only elevated her anxiety into saying yes. I feel like Christian’s intentions were to place blame on her because he himself didn’t really want to take it. Idk that would align w his character more

The ending of Midsommar was interesting to me because it felt like we were manipulated into smiling with Dani at watching her boyfriend burn. It's like we were drawn into the cult and indoctrinated right alongside Dani. Something that should have been horrifying to both Dani and us as the audience, leaves us feeling satisfied and relieved. For me, it was deeply unsettling to realise I felt the exact way that the cult would have wanted...I had been manipulated into wanting this.