59: Midsommar: The Worst Couple I’ve Ever Seen—Happy Valentine’s Day!

Welcome to Everything Trying to Kill You, the comedy podcast that talks about horror movies! In episode 59, about Ari Aster’s Midsommar, your hosts Mary Kay, Mary, and Rachel answer important questions like these:

What country (besides Sweden) are you most afraid to visit? Is Australia where the devil keeps his pets? Was Christian raped? But is he ALSO the worst? What does Josh mean by his comment about “maybe you’re not paying attention to the right thing?” Are Christian’s actions defensible? What about the sequence of walking through the house where Dani’s sister annihilated her family? What is Ari Aster going through that he wrote THIS right after Hereditary? What’s the most identifiable-with moment in this movie? Why does Dani stay with Christian? Where are Dani’s friends? Why are any of these people friends with Mark—how did he find his way into this social circle? What’s the deal with the bad trips in the movie? How does the brightness and the beauty of this film work for a horror film? Why does Josh withhold his information about the Attestupa ritual? How dare you, Christian, try to take Josh’s idea? Is this type of anthropological study immoral? Is this movie scary? What was the scariest part? What do you make of Dani’s insomnia-sleeping-pills-dream? Why does she look into the mirror while she’s on mushrooms? What’s the deal with that A-frame building? Why do we like cult movies? Why were we set up to think that it was a BAD thing to be the May Queen? Did you get “The Lottery” vibes from it, too? Why doesn’t the anesthesia work?! Was the prophet’s coloring as funny to you as it was to Rachel? Were Pelle’s parents also sacrificed? Why were the bodies stuffed with straw? What is the “blood eagle?” What animal corpse would you burn your ex inside of?

Midsommar (2019)– Written and directed by Ari Aster; performances by Frances Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter, Vilhelm Blomgren

Genre: Horror, Thriller, Suspense, Cult, Folk Horror

Where to watch: Amazon Prime

Summary: A couple travel to Sweden to visit their friend's rural hometown for its fabled midsummer festival, but what begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.

Tags: horror, drama, thriller, suspense, cult, pagan, Florence Pugh, Ari Aster, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter, Vilhelm Blomgren, ritual, brainwash, family annihilator, ritual suicide

Links: 

This Podcast Will Kill You’s episode about the Corona Virus.

Pandemic Netflix series.

How MIDSOMMAR Utilizes and Subverts Horror Movie Tropes of People of Color on Graveyard Shift Sisters blog (hosted by Ashlee Blackwell)

Preacher Boys, by our sound editor Eric Skwarczynski

Pre-order Mary Kay’s book on Indiebound, Amazon, or from her person via email.