Ari Aster, are you alright pal?

Because MIDSOMMAR (2019) is fucking unsettling. Unsettling in a way I've rarely experienced with a film. Nobody has ever put the sound of screaming into a film like Ari Aster. It's quite horrorfying actually how his cinematic screams, whether it's a grieving mother or broken daughter, will never ever leave my consciouss. It's a sound that will stay with me forever. Sure, Ari Aster's fantastic debute HEREDITARY (2018) was disconcerting, but within a more classic frame of horror it was to be expected. MIDSOMMAR, Aster's difficult sophomore project that once and for all should prove he's a name to be remembered, is an entirely other kind of beast. A Swedish, pagan, ritualistic beast, which channels anxiety, grief, redemption and love. The opening of MIDSOMMAR, where Dani (a career-defining performance by the great Florence Pugh) suffers one of the biggest tragedies one could imagine is without question one of the most terrorizing sequences I've ever witnesses. I was left with goosebumps and an aching stomach that stayed with me for the incoming two hours of a trip into a sunny nightmare.