After her family is brutally killed, Dani finds comfort with Christian in mourning their deaths together. Later, he invites her and other members of his group on an excursion to Harga, Sweden for their annual midsommar celebration.

Ari Aster conducted extensive research to ensure his depictions of drug trips were both genuine and realistic.

The history

Dani (the protagonist), is struggling with her sister’s suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning when Christian and his friends invite her along on a planned trip to Hargan, Sweden where they’ll attend midsommar: a nine-day festival celebrating summer solstice. At first she hesitates but ultimately agrees.

Once in Hargan, Dani quickly becomes acquainted with the rituals of the commune. First she receives mushroom tea; all members drink this beverage before electing their May Queen. This tea contains Psilocybin mushrooms (from the Psilocybinamyces order), which have long been utilized by indigenous communities before being popularized as recreational drugs; these hallucinogens can produce trips lasting eight hours and leave users feeling disoriented, dreamy and inexplicably contented.

While initially idyllic, characters quickly discover that there is an unsavoury underside to this celebration: murder, sexual deviance and even cannibalism among its members. Additionally, this film contains unnerving sounds and images which evoke feelings of fear and dread.

Horror theorists such as Robin Wood have defined one of the hallmarks of horror film as its ability to generate feelings of dread and uneasiness by employing elements of the uncanny. Uncanny elements can include anything familiar yet strange at once – for instance talismans or rituals used within cult rituals can all work to heighten this effect.

Yellow flowers provide the cult with an unsettling air, acting both as symbols of homeliness and hostility, yet also suggestive of treachery and betrayal. Their presence throughout the commune emphasizes its strange qualities.

Midsommar is a traditional celebration with uncanny undertones that create an otherworldly atmosphere, making it seem like an inverted adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. Ari Aster, director of Midsommar and this year’s breakout horror hit Hereditary, once described his films as being likened to “The Wizard of Oz for perverts”. It is easy to see why.

The ingredients

Although never stated in the film, we can infer that Pelle serves his friends Dani and Christian “mushroom tea” to help them adjust to life in the village during Midsommar festivities. It likely involves some form of psilocybin mushroom tea used historically in ritualistic ceremonies before becoming popular with recreational trippers.

After the murder-suicide, Dani attempts to cope with her grief by spending time with Christian and his friends. While she tries to remain neutral, Christian reveals they’re planning to travel together to Harga, Sweden for a midsommar celebration to honor those lost – although Dani finds this gathering distasteful since both parents died as part of this tragedy; therefore she tells Christian she already has other plans and avoids attending it altogether.

The preparation

As is true of other hallucinogenic substances, midsommar mushroom tea‘s effects may last several hours or longer depending on how much is taken and for how long. According to Ari Aster’s film, Dani appears to experience her journey for about eight hours if one takes into account any time spent asleep.

Christian, Josh and Pelle invite Dani to Sweden for the Harga midsommar festival; she accepts even though she’s still grieving from the death of both of her parents. Josh organized this trip as part of his anthropology dissertation on traditional European rituals and celebrations – something that clearly holds great meaning to him.

Once in the village, visitors are given magical mushrooms and mushroom tea in order to help them adjust to its festivities.

The effects

As well as physical effects, hallucinogen mushrooms also alter how our minds interpret reality. This psychedelic experience, commonly referred to as “the trip,” was one of Ari Aster and Pawel Pogorzelski’s primary tools in immersing audiences into the experience of drinking mushroom tea from an underground cult.

Aster and his collaborators employed vibrant colors, wide lenses, and an intricate series of overlapping shots to create an immersive experience that was both real and otherworldly. Through this method they aimed to mimic the sense of space-time warping that people experience while under the influence of psilocybin found in magic mushrooms.

Dani initially experiences a short trip (roughly seven to eight hours, including time passed out) that’s marked by hallucinations of her dead sister and grass growing through her skin. Over time however, these trips become longer and erratic.

Midsommar’s climax may not be as viscerally shocking and impactful as Hereditary, yet still packs an emotional wallop with its vivid imagery and unflinching depiction of human misery. When two older members of a cult community commit suicide by jumping off a cliff into a waterfall as a form of suicide, their deaths are shown with unsettling detail that will send chills down viewers’ spines – creating an unforgettable depiction of hallucinogen use that is certain to send chills through audiences – making Midsommar one of only few films who dares take on such subjects head on head on!