Being headless.

Familial resentment

Remaining seated until the vehicle comes to a complete stop.

Food allergy awareness

A mother spiraling after the death of her mom

in a VERY broad sense, how a family deals with a traumatic event - but I would have to rewatch to see how I feel about how the supernatural elements fit into the story. It still feels like that part is about family trauma tho.

Obviously! The grandmother torments the mom’s brother bc she wanted a suitable vessel. It’s not just generational trauma but intragenerational curses

Sometimes that’s a hereditary disease or mental illness, sometimes is a parent acting selfishly for their own gain whilst harming the future of their child (parents who ruin the credit scores of their kids by creating loans in their name)

There’s a reason why the two great Greek tragedy trilogies involve the sins of the forebears. My biggest “fault” with Hereditary is that the mom never transgresses in the way that Orestes or Antigone does. Her family’s downfall was written when her brother died by suicide &

She didn’t let her mother get close to her newborn son (giving a potential new vessel for the demon)

In Greek tragedy, there is a transgression against the norms that the protagonist HAS to do. Oedipus - accidentally killing his father. Antigone: disobeying the king to respect her father’s body. Clytemnestra avenging the daughter Agamemnon killed for the winds to sail to Troy.

Something transgressive that doesn’t need to be done but must (esp w Antigone and Clytemnestra). And in Hereditary is just a flock of sacrificial lambs

to add to this: what would you say Midsommar is about?

Getting over a bad breakup.

How I'm a girl.

tradition

I can’t find the review but it’s something like “sometimes what’s good for the community involves sacrifices from others and itself”

I think @colindickey.com wrote it

It’s this! www.motherjones.com/politics/201...

Very interested to read this. On second viewing i remember feeling crazy for the way ppl talk abt the community/cult as the horror. it reads so much better as a bait and switch. Yes the cult does the scary horror movie things, but the friend group transgresses so much worse

The transgressions don’t even matter though - out of the 7 visitors, 6 of them were doomed

Sorry 6 visitors: the 4 American grad students and then the 2 Brits whose transgression was “get me out of here”

Why grad school is a poor choice

Dammit I was about to say this

Americas isolating/individualist culture making us easy marks for cults and fascism

Whiteness, both of them. Also, check out this great essay on Midsommar: blindfieldjournal.com/2019/11/06/o...

Toxic positivity and how people desperate enough for a sense of community can be easily manipulated.

Toxic empathy is what I meant.

It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but spitballing I’d say the terror and ecstasy of motherhood

A family forcing their children to be a part of their cult

You will never escape your family.

A grieving family is slowly broken down by a demon-worshiping cult

dollhouses [aesthetics]

i don’t know if this is what ari aster personally believes, but the film seems to be about generational trauma and the notion that trauma can be passed down within families and inherited by one’s children

as an aside, i’m a scaredy cat when it comes to horror, but the scene in that movie that i find completely unbearable and impossible to revisit is toni collette’s crying/wailing/outpouring of grief after she learns that her daughter died—even thinking about it now pains me on a fundamental level

that death will stay with me forever and I think it's cuz I'm a mom and have an older son and younger daughter. One of the most horrific deaths I've ever seen.