Uninspired by the dissertations they are supposed to be writing, three anthropology graduate students accept their Swedish classmate Pelle’s invitation to attend a Midsummer festival in Hälsingland, Sweden. The festival is being hosted by the commune in which Pelle was raised, a close-knit group of approximately eighty members who live as a collective family. The invitation arrives just as Dani (Florence Pugh), the girlfriend of one of the American students, is mourning the loss of her parents and sister. Unnerved by the prospect of spending an extended period alone, she asks to join the others on their trip.

The festival takes place in a settlement of quaint wooden cabins and barns set amidst gently sloping grassy pastures. The place is beautiful but remote, with echoes of the Armitage family’s country home in Jordan Peele’s Get Out—if anything were to go wrong, it feels a long way from help. This setting—which is at once attractive and deeply creepy—embodies one of the film’s central tensions: it is a horror film that looks like a lifestyle photoshoot. It is the rare scary movie that takes place almost entirely in daylight, in a setting that is beautiful, not off-putting. The incoherence of Midsommar’s bucolic setting with the violent events that it depicts makes the movie difficult to categorize, but also gives it more widespread appeal. It is a horror movie that even non-fans of the genre can enjoy.

The Americans are shown to their accommodations, a series of twin-sized beds arranged side-by-side around the perimeter of a vast barn with many more similar beds. The barn is decorated with intricate murals in pastel colors of wild plants and animals and playful drawings of darker ritualistic activities. There is absolutely no privacy. “Does everybody sleep here?” asks Dani, taking note of the lack of personal space. “Only those younger than 36,” explains Pelle. The commune is organized by life stage, each of which corresponds with the seasons: spring (01-18), summer (18-36), and so on. Each life stage is 18 years and has distinct responsibilities. Those between 36-54 are workers for example, while those from 54-72 are elders, advise younger members on spiritual matters. “What happens after 72?” asks Dani, unwilling to acknowledge the obvious.

Day turns to brightly lit dusk, as the near permanent sunlight of the Scandinavian summer distorts our perception of time. The group gathers for a meal. Six long tables covered in flowing tablecloths are arranged at bizarre intersecting angles. The camera captures the scene from above, revealing that the tables are arranged in an unidentified runic symbol. The eighty or so commune members are clad uniformly in white linen gowns while their American counterparts stand out awkwardly in jeans and t-shirts. The group refrains from sitting as two elder members approach solemnly on foot. As they arrive at the head of the table, the couple lock eyes and raise a crystal stemmed glass before downing its contents. In unison, the rest of the group sits down to eat, the soft chatter of silver on porcelain emanating from the otherwise hushed gathering.   

Ari Aster, the film’s director, cleverly depicts the commune’s setting and its members as outwardly healthy, well-dressed, and clean. They appear radiant, their lifestyle mildly aspirational. These are not the filthy members of the Manson family who populate Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, they look more like devotees of Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand Goop who took New Age spiritualism a few steps too far. Squint your eyes and the commune’s grassy grounds looks more like the Sag Harbor abode of a well-heeled hippy than the setting of a pagan ritual.

A strength of the film is its villains look and feel similar to its victims, and to the audience itself. Midsommar’s most obvious influence, in both content and style, is Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. At the most basic level, both films focus on the ritualistic activities of a pagan cult. But it’s worth noting that both are horror films that eschew the tropes of the genre (gotchas, dark rooms, inscrutable villains). Both Midsommar and Rosemary’s Baby depict terrible actions committed by apparently normal people. And both directors handle this bizarre, violent activity in a very straightforward way—as if this might plausibly happen to somebody you know. The movies are scary because they make you question the world around you and the motives of people you think you trust—what is your upstairs neighbor Lisa really doing when she’s pacing around at 3AM? As in Rosemary’s Baby, it’s not entirely clear how you’re supposed to react to Midsommar’s climactic moments. Should you laugh or turn away in disgust?

Midsommar explores themes of family, community, mortality, and social ritual. And now is an opportune time explore all of these of these themes, as trust in institutions plummets, rates of loneliness and depression are spiking, and many are seeking structure, purpose, and salvation—whether it be in yoga class or the mega church. Midsommar depicts the close sense of community that communal living can provide, but also suggests that its flipside: violence, manipulation, and injustice are just as inherent to communal living as the positive aspects.

Ultimately, the film’s message is ambiguous. We witness an outwardly idyllic commune devolve into violence and sacrifice, but in the film’s prologue we witness equally violent actions committed by those who have nothing to do with the group. Midsommar’s viewers are left with the uncomfortable feeling that humans are inherently violent and that ritualizing violent activity merely prescribes boundaries around violent behavior that is inevitable in any human society.