Midsommar and the Terrifying Complex of Daylight
How 2019’s Best Horror Movie Will Make You Afraid of the Light
Horror films are generally associated with darkness, small spaces, and nighttime. After all, it is in the shadows of the night when there is no safety nor comfort where situations seem the most terrifying. Ari Aster’s 2019 film, “Midsommar,” challenges these classic horror tropes by providing a bright and colorful cinematic experience that is beautiful to watch while just as unsettling. Set in a rural Swedish town where the sun never sets, the film features a group of American graduate students who partake in pagan festivities and become entangled in its dangerous rituals. The creators used a variety of unconventional camera techniques to display horror, uncertainty, and helplessness in this film that takes place almost entirely outdoors.
Distorting Our View
One of the many ways in which “Midsommar” can disorient viewers is in the filmmaker’s extensive use of nonlinear distortion to place them into the shoes of the characters. The clearest example of this is in a scene where the protagonist Dani (Florence Pugh) takes hallucinogenic mushrooms shortly after arriving in the Swedish countryside.
