WHAT IS HAPPENING?!? | Midsommar Reaction & Review | A24 

No, they definitely don’t let her go. She’s been brainwashed into their cult now. Pelle kissing her made me realize that he intended to bring her into that community from the get go. They need outside people to procreate and Dani was easy to turn.

To me, the disturbing aspects are what's implied more that what's shown. For instance, both Christian and Dani are drugged. Neither of them is in control of what they're doing. So Christian is sexually assaulted and Dani is manipulated into sentencing him to death and she is forced to watch him burn. She is also now apparently a brainwashed member of the cult. No one knows where she is, no one will go looking for her. She is in a foreign country, in the middle of nowhere. All this, after losing her family in a murder/suicide. That's disturbing stuff to me.

A24 proving themselves to not only be awesome in production and distribution, but also as a company. Obviously, they're not perfect but still. This is why A24 has a cult-like following. Also, I LOVE Ari Aster. Also also, Pugh's devasted wailing in the beginning is HAUNTING. Also also also, how after the entire film you think they "let Dani go"???!?!? This is essentially her first family, the one that accepted and supported her. Sure it was manipulative but, to me, it's also earnest. She finally found the people she deserves, which all of the implications of that that means.

Oh, they don’t let her go; she’s one of them now. She has no family, no friends, and feels like she has nothing to go back home to. That smile she gives in the final shot means she’s officially lost her mind, I think. Also, I think “Silent Hill” actually IS the barbed-wire monster movie she’s describing in the end discussion! The desert mutant people are in “The Hills Have Eyes”. 😁

I can't wait for the sequel: "I Know What You Did Last Sommar"

28:50 LMAO stage manager walkthrough of the Midsommar village is the funniest mental image. 'This is the old people death cliff, make sure you watch your step, folks, we've glow-taped the edge'

You have to admit. The elderly woman displayed beautiful form on her "final dive". (Unlike her male counterpart)

Come to Sweden at Midsommar, it will be a lovely time. No worries about the special traditions, they only happen every 90 or 9 years. 😀

This is one of those movies where you don't "find the twist", the twist finds you... several times.

as someone who's quite desensitized to horror stuff, the most uncomfortable bit about this film to me was Dani and Christian's scenes 😅

I'm pretty sure the movie Clarus thinks is "Silent Hill" is actually "The hills Have Eyes" and the movie with the spiky barb monster is actually "Silent Hill."

The sympathetic screaming is one of the scariest scenes i've ever seen

As a Swedish person I have a love/hate relationship towards this movie since it takes one of the more wholesome traditions and twists it

Speaking of the love potion, i see you noticed that Christians drink was a different colour but didnt piece together why 🥲

"This looks like Canada!" S-Canada-navia?

Moral of the story is don’t study anthropology. Because, as archer already pointed out “I’m pretty sure somebody already named all the spiders.”

"They're getting sacrificed by the gaslighting drug cult! But check out their decorative art!"

The actor who plays Christian also plays the protagonist of the show Strange Angel, which is basically a biopic of rocket scientist and Thelemite (Aleister Crowley's... cult?) Jack Parsons, founder of nasa's jet propulsion laboratory. Show got cancelled before it got to the part of his life where he made friends with L Ron Hubbard and they did a sex ritual in the desert for a month with actress Marjorie Cameron to birth the antichrist, and then L Ron Hubbard stole all Jack's money and his wife and ran away on a boat, but still a really weird and good show that the actor is great in.

I know I'm a bit late, but it's worth saying Nerdy got it right off the bat: they're going to burning man.

Dani wasn't brainwashed and easily turned as other commenters have thought. She was already in a mental state of accepting being abused and taken advantage of long before she entered the cult. She was not a final girl. She was utterly destroyed by the ending.

While I'm looking forward to the regular content hopefully returning soon, I'm cool if Nerdy and Clarus just watch A24 movies for a while.

This has to be one of the most disturbing movie ever, just the whole time I had a sense of unease.

At 32:24 - While you might want to have given up earlier, where would you have expected them to go? And how would they have gotten there? The travelers are HUNDREDS of miles from the rest of civilization, and they were disoriented and have been drugged out since they got there. HOW would they have gotten away should they have chose to do so?

As a Swedish person, this is how midsommar is.

I've been to Sweden and lived to tell the tale. I saw no caged bears or pube pies or public suicides. I even went walking to the seaside by myself after dark, and didn't get sexually assaulted or blood eagled. In fact, people don't care to look you in the eye, let alone go to all the trouble it's going to take to indoctrinate you into a cult. That being said, it's very nice, very organized and clean, if you'd like to go, you should go. However, it's Switzerland that is known for chocolate, not Sweden.

As an cult survivor (though granted, not a murderous one) that was born and raised in one the insular nature and love bombing bs really hit for me. As did the whole taking a really weird culture for granted - tho again, not murder and period blood love potions, but still. Lol

At 41:55 - When Ari Aster made this movie, some of what he used was Norse mythology, some of it was Viking mythology, and some of it was pure imagination. It is supposed to feel like a culture that was around for hundreds of years. The fact that you feel like it "should have its own bible" means he did a good job, as did the actors.

At 49:37 - They did not just let her go. She has no one. Her family is dead, and Christian was all she had left. The Harga lady said that they were her new family. Dani is completely at their mercy. I am terrified for her.

I hope that one day, we can start calling men who were drugged and forced to have sex with another person rape victims. Not assaulted. Raped.

At 56:33 - flounder vs. founder... Floundering means being as unstable like a flopping fish. Foundering means stumbling and making missteps.

I think the couch was super indicative of the dynamic of their relationship.

At 5:37 - It's not the next day - it's six months later. Dani isn't handling her mourning well, but Christian isn't as supportive as he could be.

At 25:27 - The boyfriend doesn't seem smart enough to write a thesis. While it seems to be the case, the four guys - Christian, Josh, Mark, and Pelle - are sociology grad students. Josh explained earlier on in the movie that he was doing his PhD thesis on European midsummer cultures and rituals. Josh also told Christian that he was lazy, and distracted from thinking about his own PhD thesis. It's only NOW that Christian decided to do his thesis on the Harga. But because Josh is black and the Harga community has been dismissive of him, the Harga have given Christian "first dibs" on permission to write about them.

Seeing the audience reaction in the theaters was addicting, I went 3 times 😂

At 14:28 - "Make everyone blonde..." They are supposed to be in Sweden. It's part of the native scene. (They filmed in Romania, but that's not the point...)

Funny story about my first time watching Midsommar: all the weird sex things in the cult didn’t surprise me as much as I … should have been surprised? Long story but … years ago, a friend showed me a video by Marina Abramovic called Balkan Erotic Epic. It was in full, on RU-vid uncensored (back in the Wild West of RU-vid). it would get taken down and then someone would just upload it again. Abramovic is a performance artist from Serbia and I think the video is supposed to be about some old fashioned rituals and superstitions from the Balkan region, though I don’t know if all of them are real. The video features a bit about a love potion where a woman puts a fish in her v****na overnight and then takes it out and puts it in some sort of broth or tea to give to her man to ensure that he stays in love with her and devoted to her forever. In another bit, a man … drills a hole in a bridge before his wedding and uh, has his way with it and it’s supposed to be good luck to his marriage? There’s a lot of naked people in groups doing strange performances, also humping the ground at one point in a very green field. And while there was nothing like the group sex in Midsommar, it just overall has a similar … vibe? to the point that I’m convinced Ari Aster had seen Balkan Erotic Epic.

Definitely supposed to be "foundering" to describe their relationship. Signed, An Anthropology Ph.D.

At 9:47 - What did the upside-down sign say? It said "Welcome to Helsingland," and then it said something about stopping immigration. But it was a blink and you'll miss it, especially if you don't know the language.

There’s this cult documentary that analyzes cult scenes and they used some clips including the congregation crying with Dany and the women, it almost removes her autonomy and her pain, and it makes it seem like they share it with her, but it’s to deceive and to make her feel as if she’s a part of them to ease the transition. Like when ppl all sing together at a concert, when it’s over you feel like you were part of something greater. Also the way they are crying starts to sound like a chant, it can become rhythmic and even induce a trance. 👀

Paying people fairly is counter productive to short - midterm profits. Long term is less of an issue if you can move your assets around and the markets don't change too quickly to react. That's why you need unions, not everyone who owns the businesses have a vested interest in paying people more to compensate for inflation and cost of living increases. That and individuals rarely have the bargaining power to bring anyone to the table.

At 16:16 - While Dani and Christian were together for four years and two weeks, Christian has been thinking about breaking it off for about a year. So... Yeah, that's not a healthy relationship.

there is an ethnic aspect of no poc characters were approved to mate while chris and will poulters characters were

You know who the boyfriend reminds me of. A slightly too mellow Jesse Pinkman. Also his "This is fine." face in the burning hut is just priceless.

We are having our special ceremony this midsommar it only happens every 86 years. No bears this year we have a kangaroo. Be super stoked if you guys can come.

Not sure if someone said this already, but I think that they purposely didn't tell the "visitors" of their customs so that they would feel justified in sacrificing them!

At 13:50 - ...because the children have arrived after doing drugs in the woods... Do you realize that, after a four-hour drive and a drugged-out session before going through the woods, the band of visitors have no useful references of location other than "we're here"?

When I went to the theater to see this film, I didn't know it would be a horror film. It reminded me very much of The Wicker Man, but exquisitely crafted, written and directed.

I really love this movie, even though, I must say, I didn't really find it scary. It's definitely disturbing, though, and fascinating at the same time. Not like Hereditary, which I found really scary and nightmare-inducing.

Midsommar is... *one of* my favourite movies of the last few years! If that doesn't scare you away, my thoughts on the film for what they're worth: It's a political film. Dani is obviously traumatised by what happened to her family, and she needs support. In the life she has she doesn't have a real support network. She has a useless boyfriend and the only other people in her life who we see are his friends, who are also jerks. It's a picture of the hyper-individualistic world of modern American life under capitalism. The three American men represent different pathologies of this life: inability to commit and form meaningful relationships, brainless childish hedonism, and ruthless careerist ambition. So she craves community, the feeling of "being held" as Pele puts it. She seems to find that in the Horga. They are a tight-knit community who look out for each other and share in each other's pain. They have everything Americans lack. The problem is they are also a fascistic death cult. The racism angle is absolutely important - they choose only blonde, white outsiders to breed with, and as you point out they kill the non-white people first. They represent Nazi-style fascism. When people get attracted to that ideology it's often because they think modern life has become disconnected and overly individualistic. They turn to a version of community that is entirely about the ingroup and violent towards outsiders because, evil and fucked up as it is, it seems to offer them something. This film is both a critique of the alienated form of life under capitalism, and a warning about the kind of trouble you can get into in searching for an alternative. No idea if that's what Ari Aster had in mind, but that's what I take from it (aside from just being a great horror film).

Founder is another word for a ship sinking.

"It's like Burning Man." Very apropos

Props for calling it on Simon. And W for the editor. Silent Hill or The Hills Have Eyes? Love good Folk Horror. If y’all have not seen The Wicker Man (1974,) ya must.

Sweden, exporting the ättestupa as a viable alternative to solve the state pension fund issue. Welcome to Misdommar! (no, it's not a factual retelling of typical midsommar festivities 😆)

Simon was tired of Connie wearing courdoroys the whole trip is what I would have said.

As someone who saw this movie in theaters with my father and stepmother, can confirm extremely uncomfortable. My dad picks this movie not knowing what it was about. Lesson learned

English nerd here! Founder = (of a plan or undertaking) to fail or break down, typically as a result of a particular problem or setback,

Saw this in theaters , the orchestra in the final scene and the March to the cliff was so loud and beautiful! Every time I see this I find more Easter eggs, you guys missed a lot you should see a missed Easter eggs video on your own there’s SO much! Did you see the MASSIVE little sister in the trees with the thing taped to her mouth , it’s in the background , there’s a ton of those things, very much like Hereditary, majority of reactors missed SO much in all of these, as did I. This movie and hereditary getter better every watch.

Now, (like with Hereditary,) you can rewatch it and pay attention to the background. I highly recommend y’all checkout one of my Top 4 on LetterBoxD, Ravenous (1999.) Also, sticking with A24, have y’all watched The Green Knight (2021,) Green Room (2016,) or Under The Skin (2014?) 🙏🏼☺️

Christian is a trash boyfriend, but I do feel a bit bad for him in the beginning because he wanted out of the relationship, but then her entire family was killed and there’s no way he could leave her then. He naturally shows that he’s a total scumbag by the end, though.

I slept in a room with this many people or maybe more and more tightly packed together on a mountain climbing trip. It was the basecamp cabin before the peak and it was very hard to sleep.

There is no way I am wasting my precious time left on this here earth watching this intelligent sucking movie again. What is scary about dancing around a May Pole, drinking mushroom tea and belching into each other’s face? The only real things about this movie is that you REALLY DO need to check your food before taking a bite and you don’t have to worry about Social Security and retirement.

Have y’all reacted to “ Berserk “old school version 1990s . it’s very dark and fued up at the end tho . Its a quick show and one of the first ever dark fantasy Animes ever created!love your videos and hope you keep kicking ass !

"It's Burning Man!" Oh, you have no idea...

I don't think a place needs to say, "Don't pee outside in our property" lol... I would never go into some community and pee behind their tepee or something xD

This is my favorite Horror movie ever. I have seen it at least 10 times. The ending scene lives in my head rent free forever. The smile at the end makes my heart warm. I wrote this before you comment about it being someone's favorite movie. BTW. - no cap... This is the perfect date movie. Put a bear skin blanket down and make meat pies and sangria and place flower petals leading from the tv to the bedroom. - BEST Date night EVER!

Lol, I think you got The Hills Have Eyes mixed up with Silent Hill (which is the "barbed wire monster" one).

isn't Switzerland known for their good chocolate?

"Death is lighter than a feather" -- **SPLAT** "usually".

@Clarus wanting to go to Sweden? Go in July/August. Summer still going on, lakes usually heated up from a warm summer, flowers and trees are in bloom and people are on vacation or just back home from one and relaxed. Longer evenings that, if weather permits, are great for a BBQ. Midsummer is usually at end of June and it's a family tradition time so it's Midsummer and Christmas when everything is closed. Fortunately you will probably not be invited to one of these Midsommar-cult celebrations xD

At 54:08 - I'm not sure why you haven't picked up the cult vibe, and how easily Dani was taken in. While Ari Aster said that he intended to make the "ultimate break-up movie," it is watching how the audience feels persuaded to sympathize with the Harga, despite how messed up their society is.

Other than the mushrooms and the messed up stuff, it's fairly accurate to the swedish holiday midsommar with the flower pole, dancing, aesthetic & flowercrowns. I can also see how the pubic hair ritual thing might be loosely inspired by a real tradition where young girls would pick 7 flowers, jump over 7 fences, and then put the flowers under their pillow on the night towards midsummer and sleep on them, and they would supposedly dream about their soul mate. The old people jumping off the cliff is debated if it actually used to be a thing that happened in sweden, but while no real evidence exists, there are tales about it. (So I'm actually from the region that this is meant to take place in) The story about the devil coming to make the youth dance to death is a real swedish folktale that we tell kids about. It supposedly happened in Hårga and sometimes parents will take their kids to the hill in question that the dancing supposedly took place at to show them the circle "left behind" after the young adults of the village dancing til they died. I forget a lot of people probably don't realise in the movie midsommar, the "pants license" Pelle is referring to is something that happens at age 15. The ginger chick they have fucked in the barn is literally 15. (Real thing btw, although it's an expression in swedish rather than an actual liscense, but it means they're of the age of consent. And yes it's fucked up that it's 15 here, not gonn argue that in the slightest.)

The first film that gave me an anxiety attack in a cinema. Brilliant film

You really need to watch the massively influential 70s original Wicker Man movie that gave birth to the term folk horror. It's far better than Midsommer in many ways in my opinion from the investigation of missing girl to the christianity vs pagan aspect. It's the cult classic that Midsommer kinda copied :-)

This is based sort of on Scandinavian and (maybe?) Celtic "paganism" - the old, old, kind, but a lot is also the invention of the movie. For example, they mention the all-father (the god Odin) near the beginning at the commune, and May Poles are also well known as fertility symbols throughout Celtic and (maybe?) Scandinavian cultures, etc. But this community is definitely the invention of the movie. What helped me going through it the first time was my knowledge of the Celtic holiday, Beltane (on May 1st, the one with the May Pole and the May Queen, as well as many fertility rights, blessing of crops, etc.), but as this is in Scandinavia, maybe they celebrate this on the summer solstice because of the different climate and because the crops are sewn later??

I didn’t realize it before, but @ 8:57 there’s the tell!

She is 100% part of the cult now. She's not going anywhere.

Clarus looks kind of like Anya Taylor Joy (especially in The Menu when she had red hair) So pretty! 🩷 I just found your guys channel and love it so far

Dani found a family.

Europeans don’t have big plane seats btw

Love your review of the Wheel of Time S1 and your book club! I'm so sad that we don't get to see your reactions to S2. I hope the Actors' strike will be over soon and they get what they asked for because they truly deserve it!!! Then I can see your WOT season reactions again.

"You are the family, yes?"

Less than 2 months remaining until Midsummer now😊 you're all welcome here🇸🇪🤫

The very first sound out of nerdy in the intro describes this movie perfectly 😂

On wanting to watch this movie on substances, I watched this in the theater for the first time on acid. It was a time.

I think she means the hills have eyes, not silent hill

That ättestupa thing where the old people get thrown/jump off the cliff used to be a thing here in Sweden way back in the old norse times, according to the legends. When you can't take care of yourself or work, you're a burden for society so, ya die. Doesn't happen now ofc, but we do care less for our eldery here compared to some other cultures. Aka, they live in service homes (either alone but with a button alarm for when they need help, or in a group home with staff) rather than being cared for by their family. It's sort of odd here to have an old person living with their family. Generally they're well cared for in the homes, but the average age and state of those living there is OLD and SICK, it's nothing like those florida resorts. It's a very common fear for swedish people to become codependent or a burden for those you love. Tbh, I personally know of many people who (secretly) think we should kill old people that 1. are terminal 2. their mind has gone. Elderly people cost a lot of tax money and space, and you can keep terminal old people alive in their beds for fucking years, it's a waste. Personally I wouldn't just kill them, but maybe give people the euthanasia option for when they get that sick/lose their mind, but that's still illegal here. Wow, such a tangent, soz.

46:43 pocket sand

The movie she is describing is the hills have eyes i think. Or one of the remakes or knockoffs. Silent hill is the one for the video game.

Have you guys seen Talk To Me, a great Australian indie horror movie directed by twin brothers also RU-vidrs.

also burning man kinda sucks if you're not rich just a warning

Oh god i absolutely adore this movie, ive watched it so many times and shown it to so many people, i dont expect a lot of the responses to it

She's gonna co-mother Christian's child from now on.

'They'd let her go?' You guys are cute...

Why would you think she would want to go?

I’m pretty sure it meant to say foundering. To founder is to fail or break down.

a much better remake of The Wicker Man than the official one

I also thought I was getting a phone call 🤣🤣🤣🤣

omgg has anyone told you you look so similar to anya taylor joy

Did you just mix up "Silent Hill" with the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes"? 😂 Those are very different films.

This is my first time watching one of your reactions and it was hilarious! This is a movie that you'll notice more of the subtle hints throughout the movie on your second viewing. After my first viewing I was kinda *meh* but it has definitely grown on me since then. I just wish I'd seen it in theaters with first-time viewers.