Editorials
‘Midsommar’ (2019): Dani’s Divisive Development
Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019) is one of the most contentious horror movies of recent years, with people either loving or hating it. I’ve never met anyone who said it was just okay. Personally, I’m on the loving side. I see it as a disturbing character study of Dani, a young woman who experiences extreme trauma. This article, with spoilers galore, will discuss Dani’s development, particularly in the director’s cut.
The inciting incident of Midsommar comes in the first few minutes. Dani’s sister Terri has sent an ominous email ending with “goodbye” just before killing herself and their parents via carbon monoxide poisoning. Because of Terri’s bipolar diagnosis, Dani’s boyfriend Christian wants to write off this last email as another “obvious ploy for attention.” Although Dani is panicking, saying that this message “seems different” from the others, Christian tiredly gaslights her into disregarding the serious nature of it. He sees Dani as hysterical and needy. Dani, meanwhile, is just trying to care for her sister in a difficult time. Christian writes off Terri as irrational and Dani as enabling.
Of course, as we soon learn, the email was not seeking attention but was truly a farewell. Christian’s disregard for the sisters’ needs shows that his empathy is lacking. We learn that he’s wanted to break up with Dani for over a year, but he hesitated because he might want her back. It’s clear, however, that he doesn’t love or even care for her anymore. Dani expresses to a nameless friend her worries of leaning on him too much, of beingtoo much. Her friend says the point of a relationship is to lean on each other, and wouldn’t Dani be there for Christian if he needed support? Dani struggles, as so many women do, with the desire to not appear needy and as a chore. Women, like all living beings, do have needs. Women, like all humans, are social creatures who need support from time to time. Dani fills space in her boyfriend’s life. She is not a background figure or a toy, despite how much he wants her to be. Granted, by the time the movie starts, there’s really no good opportunity for Christian to end the relationship. Even so, he doesn’t deserve to die.
Yet his death at the end is a victory for Dani. She has developed from a passive to a functional character in her own story. She surveys the turmoil and fire, smiles, and thinks to herself, “I did this.” Some audience members may smile with her, like I did. Not only has she become an active player, but the one who restrained her will never have power again. She “purged the wickedness,” which is also what a villager says before setting the temple ablaze. She is no longer complicit and beaten down. How much more can we ask for than to be seen and to be an active participant in life?
Let’s look more into her development. When Dani finds out about Christian and his friends’ upcoming trip to Sweden and asks him about it, he gaslights her again. She remains calm as she confronts him, but his insistence that he should leave so she can cool down leads her to apologize profusely. But Dani has nothing to apologize for. She didn’t verbally or physically attack and she didn’t even cry, though her upset is clear and valid. At this point, she is a passive player in her own life.
Dani first genuinely smiles when she speaks to Pelle about his Swedish home. We glimpse who she could be when she doesn’t feel herself a burden. Sweden and Pelle provide the opportunity for her to feel belonging. In Sweden, when Dani has a panic attack, Christian is nowhere to be seen but Pelle is there to comfort her. He asserts that she deserves a family, to be “held,” to have a home. Christian gives her none of that. This is an early turning point for our protagonist, one of the first instances when she sees potential for healing.
One common criticism of Midsommar, especially the director’s cut, is the amiable framing of the Swedish cult. Dani is undoubtedly indoctrinated into the cult at a time when she most needs support. On the way to Pelle’s home of Harga, Christian’s friend Josh reads a book about Nazi symbols because the village uses such a runic alphabet. Dani makes light of this and says, “See that, Pelle? You’ve managed to brainwash all of your friends.” Little does she know how true this is. Pelle jokes that Christian was brainwashed already, which we can deduce from his enthusiastic participation with the cult from the beginning.
Furthering the Nazi agenda are the allusions to eugenics, such as when another friend, Mark, asks what makes Swedish women so hot and gets a vague answer about the gene pool. He doesn’t care much about how that gene pool is cultivated because he is shallow and already brainwashed. Incest is also discussed in Harga, when we learn that outsiders are occasionally brought in to avoid such coupling.
It is exceedingly important that Dani becomes the May Queen. She is an outsider, alone in the world, but once she starts dancing, she loses herself in giggles, smiles, and community. The fact that the May Queen is not a Harga native shows how easily a vulnerable person can be taken in. Studies have shown time and time again that people who feel isolated and weak are often picked up by cults. Look at Germany when Hitler came to power or, in a more recent case, incels and the far right in the U.S.
Dani’s grin at the end displays her reclaimed power. She is now healing from trauma through community. The audience members who smile with her may be in need of some healing themselves. As a person who experienced trauma and is still recovering myself, I felt Dani’s relief in the final shot. In the beginning, she bears the crushing weight of survivor’s guilt. By the end, she is able to smile not because she’s polite or high, as happens before, but because she wants to. The desire and ability to smile probably seem like trivial matters to those who haven’t experienced trauma or neurodivergence. When a person is in the depths of depression, trauma, or any significantly disruptive event, smiling can be a difficult task. Wanting to express a positive emotion is a huge feat, and I am so glad that Dani reaches that point with us.
Although Dani finds her power in a deeply problematic collective, the simple fact is that she develops from passive and alone to an active figure in a loving community. That community just so happens to be a eugenicist murder cult.
Last year for 420, the great Sharai Bohannon hit you with the Top 5 Stoner Horror Movies on streaming. To celebrate 420 this year, we’re expanding our scope with horror movies to watch when you’re super stoned. There is a difference, you see. Movies don’t have to be about stoners in order to appeal to the righteously baked. Let’s jump right into it, before that edible kicks in.
5. Hausu (1977)
The only reason Hausu is ranked so low is that you may not speak Japanese. If you don’t, subtitles will likely be a struggle to keep up with. However, you don’t really need subtitles to keep up with Hausu. Obayashi Nobuhiko’s surrealist classic isn’t about plot. A witch is sucking the youth out of schoolgirls by killing them one by one. It’s not hard to parse. What Hausu is really about is giving you the brain-scrambles in every possible way.
Scenes as simple as schoolgirls getting on a bus are presented in a kaleidoscopic, colorful barrage of imagery. So imagine how it looks once the story actually gets balls-to-the-wall nuts. We’re talking characters being eaten by pianos and turning into piles of bananas. It’s wild, and it’s impossible to predict what’s around the next corner. However, the movie’s nonstop sense of fun is a safety net that should prevent you from getting too overwhelmed.
Hausu (1977) is currently streaming for free on Plex.
4. Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992)
Honestly, being stoned could only improve this latter installment in the Amityville Horror franchise. You might not be alert enough to notice just how low budget this haunted house sequel is. This will allow you to focus on just how bananas its goopy, special effects-heavy time travel story gets. Between the inscrutable character motivations and creative visuals, it’s dreamlike in the best possible way.
Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992) is currently streaming for free on Plex.
3. Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)
There’s nothing better than a post-Elm Street sequel to a straightforward pre-Elm Street slasher. Wes Craven’s 1984 classic was a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart of the slasher genre. However, its supernatural premise meant that copycat filmmakers had to shift their priorities as the slasher boom continued. It doesn’t matter a lick that the original Slumber Party Massacre had no supernatural elements. Its sequel’s a straight-up musical about a dream killer bearing an electric guitar with a giant drill bit on it. You just gotta roll with it. This movie also features some gloriously gross, cheesy nightmare sequences that stand among the best of the Elm Street ripoffs. Nothing could possibly dilate your stoned pupils more than the “evil chicken” or “exploding pimple” sequences. It’s also just 77 minutes long. Even if you’ve overestimated how much awakeness you had left in you, you can get through it.
Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) is currently streaming for free on Plex.
2. Suspiria (1977)
Dario Argento’s Suspiria is probably the most intense movie on this list in terms of its horror elements. So be warned. However, its purity as a visual experience is unmatched in the horror genre. Many filmmakers have tried and failed to recapture its color-drenched nightmare logic. Everything in the movie, from the plot to the aesthetic, feels simultaneously bizarre and perfectly ordered. Of course that woman has fallen into a room full of barbed wire. Of course that scene of a corpse crashing through a stained-glass ceiling is beautiful enough to make you weep. Honestly, maybe being stoned will get you onto whatever plane is required to fully pick up what it’s putting down.
Suspiria (1977) is currently streaming for free on Kanopy and Plex (which is a friend to all stoners, apparently).
1. Killer Party (1986)
Killer Party is also a post-Nightmare on Elm Street slasher. However, the liberties it takes with the genre are even more unhinged. It’s simultaneously a sorority slasher, a college comedy, and… well, I shouldn’t spoil that last subgenre. It’s a lot of different movies at once, all of which are perfectly designed to appeal to the stoned palate. Plus, its opening sequence within an opening sequence within an opening sequence should unlock your galaxy brain headspace right away.
Honorable Mention: Idle Hands (1999)
This title was already on Sharai’s list, otherwise it would have been at the top of mine. Not only is it a movie about stoners, but it’s a damn delightful horror-comedy thrill ride. 1990s horror icon Devon Sawa stars as a lazy young man whose hand is possessed by a homicidal demon. Things only get kookier from there.
Someone calls you on the phone. Already, this is a nightmare, but we’re not at the scary part yet. Let’s pretend you answer it. They ask, “What’s your favorite scary movie?” Your pulse races, sweat builds on your brow, and your voice begins to quiver. If you’re anything like me, this just became your favorite conversation ever. I love horror. The rush of a jump scare. The artistry of a well-executed kill. The familiarity of a formula and the thrill of upended expectations. Horror is malleable; there are at least as many fears as there are people on Earth, and my favorite subset is the Slasher.
What Defines Slasher Horror and Why It Resonates
What do I mean by Slasher? Not to be confused with slash fiction, which has its own merits, the dictionary definition reads thusly: a horror movie, especially one in which victims (typically women or teenagers) are slashed with knives and razors.
Simple. Clean. Anything but easy. For every The Strangers, there’s a The Strangers – Chapter Three. But the takeaway, at least my focus here, is that the killers in these movies are human, attack with everyday means, and therefore can be defeated by everyday means. And I find them extremely inspiring.
Supernatural Horror vs Slasher Horror: Where Hope Disappears
Hereditary is an astoundingly original and disturbing horror film with an ending that betrays everything that came before it. I absolutely loved jumping at every mouth click, the eerie presence of being watched by white-clad cultists, and a mother’s descent into madness brought on by generational trauma. I was all in! Then came the demon king Paimon. Any human connection we had, and the unrelenting tragedy the Graham family has had to endure, seems to have been for naught.
It is my contention that the film loses all of its dramatic umph the moment Toni Collette starts climbing walls and sawing off her head. You can’t beat a demon! You never had a chance. I love supernatural horror (my favorite series of any genre is The Evil Dead), but it does not leave you any room for victory, for the audience to think that “YES WE’VE WON” before having the rug pulled out from under once again (see Drag Me To Hell for the exception, not the rule). I like Midsommar more for that very reason; Florence Pugh’s Dani makes a choice. The horror comes because of human action, not an overpowering of it.
Why Human Villains Make Horror More Relatable and Beatable
People scare me. Aliens, ghosts, ghouls, imps, devils, and the like also scare me. But when a film’s villain is decidedly human, the horror hits harder because it can happen to us. Slashers deal with “the real” (again: knives, razors); they can be defeated. No film franchise better exemplifies this than Scream. In the first Scream, we see Sydney and the rest of the Scooby Gang kick/punch/evade Ghostface as he gets knocked down, falls, stumbles, and bumbles his way through the film while also scaring the ever-living crap out of some teens. These trips and slips add a layer of relatability to our evil purser.
I may not be able to see myself terrorizing an entire high school, but I sure know it hurts to fall down the stairs. Ghostface is the ur-example of defeatability. Yes, he gets up again, but part of the genius is that there typically are two (or more) people sharing a mask, so whoever just took a stomach kick or a tumble on the lawn probably has some rest time between games, as it were. This faceless evil is seemingly everywhere, popping out from any doorway and around every corner, but we can defeat it with a well-placed shove or a bullet to the head.
How the Scream Franchise Shows Horror Villains Can Be Defeated
Scream 2 followed much of the same suit (and taught us to never underestimate Laurie Metcalf). Give or take your suspension of disbelief about how good voice changers have gotten, the same could be said for Scream 3 and the return to form of Scream 4.
Where the franchise begins to lose its luster is in 5CREAM (pronounced as intended five cream). A fairly fun reboot until the appearance of one Billy Ghost Gruff. The moment we bring in ghosts (or visions brought on by blood memory, however they explained Billy Loomis showing up) into a slasher, out goes the fun and the understanding that this is something to be defeated.
Scream 6 has some great bits, but Ghostface doesn’t need a gun to scare us, and the less said about Scream 7, the better.
Horror Sequels and the Problem With Unkillable Villains
We want someone to survive. Not always (see any Final Destination), but if a horror film has done its job well, we should care about the characters and what has happened to them. That is, until we see them go through the same circumstances again and again and again, and this time with roman numerals.
Let’s take a look at Laurie Strode. In the original Halloween, she survives vicious attacks by Michael Myers, who is just a guy. A scary guy for sure. A guy with “no reason, no conscience, no understanding in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong”. But a guy nonetheless. We see his face!
People forget that Michael’s mask comes off, and there in all terrifying glory is… a dude who looks like he gave himself the nickname T-Bone. “But what about when he is shot and falls out of a second-story window, he gets up again,” you scream at your computer, “doesn’t that prove he’s more than a man?!” That’s exactly my point. At the end of Halloween (1976), we can presume Michael will go die in the brush like an injured animal, with his disappearance serving as a stark reminder that evil is inside and around all of us. Roll credits. Cue that funky synth score and play us off, John Carpenter to never visit Haddenfield again… what’s that? Halloween was a huge success? Massive return on investment? Nevermind! Money, as they say, is the root of all evil, and that has never been more apparent than in the horror movie business.
How Horror Franchises Remove the Possibility of Victory
This is why Michael Myers came back for 6 sequels, 2 reboots, and 3 requels, not counting the solitary spinoff. Horror makes money, a lot of it. One of the best ways a new filmmaker can break in is to make a successful horror film (heck, I am trying it myself). But with the franchising comes expectations. We need bigger kills; a cast of fresh-faced future stars; our original protagonist needs to hand over the reins, but also be on call for every iteration. And the villain CAN NOT DIE.
If our face of the franchise is taken off the board, how else are we going to milk him for all he’s worth? This is how we go from Michael Myers: the escaped institutionalized murderer, to Michael Myers: the embodiment of evil, who can also infect others with it literally, not inspirationally (hashtag opposite of justice for Corey Cunningham). Or in simpler terms, they took The Slumber Party Massacre killer, who used a stolen power drill to kill with impunity, and made him the personification of rockabilly killer with a drill on an electric guitar who kills with a song in his heart and hips that don’t lie and can’t die in Slumber Party Massacre II.
Yes, objectively cool. But The Driller Killer is not someone you can outrun.
HORROR IS A MIRROR (THIS IS WRITTEN IN LIPSTICK AS SOON AS YOU GET OUT OF THE SHOWER)
Horror has the great opportunity to reflect. It is the most immediate of film genres. What is scary today can be made into a movie tomorrow. What was scary 3 decades ago is often still scary today. When we see someone in a mask with a knife in their hand, it’s perfectly understandable to run. Scream. Panic. But if in your escape, you throw a pot of hot coffee on them and they are scalded, you have a chance. You can win. And the first step in winning is believing you can.
Why Modern Horror Needs Survivable Stories Again
Horror should not always be about impossible situations. We want heroes we can root for because we see ourselves in them. We want to yell at the screen, “Don’t go in there!” because we want them to survive. Or know that we wouldn’t be that dumb to split up the group.
As horror has moved on from its slasher heyday and into “the monster is actually our trauma,” this unexpected consequence has taken a toll. Life feels incredibly hard right now because we are not seeing villains we can defeat.
The Hope at the Heart of Slasher Horror
To quote a GREAT slasher (yes, Predator is a slasher and Arnold Schwarzenegger is a fabulous final girl), “If it bleeds, we can kill it”. If it bleeds, we can win. There is no great conspiracy; villains are dumber than they appear, and we’re stronger than we think.
So answer the phone, you’ll be alright.
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