Butt News #26: Midsommar
I Will Never Bow to a Swede!
[SELF-PROMOTION POWER HOUR:
Have you listened and subscribed to my new comedy/friendship podcast, Text Me Back, that I make with my BFF Meagan Hatcher-Mays? It is so funny and so precious to me! Come be our friend! Today’s episode—in which we discuss Meagan’s life of crime—is my favorite so far, which is a high bar, because I am obsessed with this podcast. Is it illegal to listen to your own podcast over and over and laugh at your own jokes? Then indict me, Special Counsel Jack Smith!
The movie I co-wrote, Thin Skin, my baby, is FINALLY out on Blu-Ray and VOD this week! You can buy a hard copy or stream it at that link. Please please please please please watch it and leave us a good review! Ratings and reviews help a tiny indie film like this sooooooooo much. If you’re in NYC, it’s also screening in-person TONIGHT (11/30) at e-flux. You can read some press reviews here and hear a cute interview with me and director Charles Mudede here.
Thank you a million bucks for being so patient with me as I uprooted my entire life and moved to the woods and launched this podcast. Butt News is now chugging along once again, like the barn full of boiling bear fat on my great aunt’s farm! Skål!]
I remember when this movie came out all the scary movie people said it was the scariest movie they’d ever seen, which was my cue to never watch it because I avoid scary movies like the plague, except the opposite, because I LOVE THE PLAGUE. I don’t want to contract it or anything, but don’t you like to read about things that are lurid?? I always have a tab open for “mustard gas” or “list of engineering catastrophes by number of deaths”! I guess I like real-life scary things, but I’m resentful of fictional scary things where the movie is manipulating me to hurt me with scares. Capisce?? Anyways, the movie that supposedly scared the scary movie people the most? That’s no movie of mine! CAPISCE?????
So there I was, planning to never watch Midsommar in my life, despite it being Scandinavian-coded like my Henrik-Ibsen-lookin’-ass, but then my friend (AND KNITTING CELEBRITY) Jessie lightly bullied me about it for 2 seconds and I am above all other things a weak worm so I said okay fine!
Jessie said Midsommar is not scary and actually it’s fun and I would love it and I said I’ve heard THAT one before—lookin @ u, Scream 2 when the knife goes through the bathroom stall divider!!!—but I decided to choose trust and so here we are.
We open with a scary tapestry and it’s already very scary! Isn’t the sun adversarial enough without having a MEAN FACE?! A woman sings hauntingly in Swedish and then BRANG BRANG A PHONE IS RINGING. See, right off the bat, there’s weasel stuff going on. You intentionally made the Swedish ghost song quiet so the phone would be loud and scare me!!!!! I’m on to you!
The brang-brang is a girl named Dani leaving a voicemail for her parents because her sister Terri (really? in 2023?) sent her a creepy e-mail implying that she was going to make herself and their parents burnt, or DEAD: “I can’t anymore, everything’s black, mom and dad are coming too, goodbye.”
Wow, fun movie, guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dani is stressed, so she calls her average boyfriend Christian to see if he still wants to hang out later but he just smoked some resin with Mark and now they’re getting pizza. Wowee, I don’t know about you all but my dog-feces alarm is aroused!!! Brang brang! As like an AFTERTHOUGHT, this sticky white man asks, “How’s the sister situation?” which definitely is how you would phrase it if your girlfriend’s bipolar sister just made a credible threat of family annihilation! Things aren’t looking good for Christian, I gotta say. To arms! To arms! Light the dog-feces beacon of Amon-Dîn!
Dani says she e-mailed Terri (I’m just saying I haven’t met a Terri under 50 IN MY LIFE) three times and still hasn’t gotten a response and Christian says this is just another obvious ploy for attention, which, like, nobody asked for tough talk right now, DUDE! Then Dani is like “I’m very lucky to have you” even though she OBVIOUSLY IS NOT and blames herself for “always roping him into [her] family crap” as though you can get crap on a piece of crap! Or even tie a rope around one!!
Meanwhile, Christian’s friends are all insisting he needs to break up with Dani because she’s a huge drag (“she should call her therapist and not you, it’s literally abuse” lmao) and he’s only staying with her to avoid working on his PhD. Plus, if he breaks up with Dani then he can get all the Swedish milkmaids pregante this summer when they go on their heterosexual men’s trip to Sweden.
Unfortunately then Dani calls and Terri has indeed murdered everyone. He can’t break up with her now! And honestly I’m glad he doesn’t!
>:-)
Christian comes over to visit Dani who is lying awake and (figuratively) burning alive in hell and staring at the wall and he’s like I’m going to this party but only for 45 minutes and literally the bad-boyfriend writing in this movie is so precise it deserves to sweep the Nobels! Dani surprises Christian by saying that she, too, would like to attend the party, ha ha.
At the party, Christian’s friend Josh is talking about how he’s studying midsummer rituals for his PhD and their Swedish friend Pelle has offered to take them all to his village—“an authentic hippie midsummer at his yodeling farm.” Dani is doing LASER EYES at Christian because he did not tell her about the milkmaid impregnation yodeling trip! Code orange dogshit alert!
Then they have this conversation, which has rendered me both burnt AND dead.
Christian: “You okay?”
Dani: “That was just really weird.”
Christian: “What was?”
Dani: “The Sweden. I had no idea.”
Christian: “Well, what do you mean? Cause I told you I wanted to go.”
Dani: “Okay, fine, but I didn’t know you were going.”
Christian: “I just decided today. I wasn’t keeping it from you.”
Dani: “You already have a ticket.”
Christian: “I’m sorry?”
Dani: …
Christian: “I just apologized, Dani.”
Dani: “You didn’t apologize, you said sorry, which sounds like ‘too bad.’”
Christian: “I think I should just leave.”
Dani: “No no no no no! I’m sorry! I just got confused! Look, it just felt really weird, okay, but I’m fine.”
Wow, sometimes the realest horror was the one that was inside you all along? Did my therapist write this????
Christian says some whiny shit about not knowing what to write his thesis about (I AM SO GLAD I DIDN’T GO TO GRAD SCHOOL) and then we cut to all the guys hanging out and talking about Sweden. Mark is like, “In Stockholm are there any meatball sex clubs we should hit up before we head up north?” and no one asks for clarification about “meatball sex.” Pelle is just like NO WE HAVE TO GO STRAIGHT TO HALSINGLAND. NO MEATBALLS.
Then Dani comes over and right before she walks in Christian is like OH BY THE WAY, “I invited Dani to come to Sweden, just so you guys know. She’s not actually going to come, but I invited her… I invited her and she accepted, but she’s not actually coming to Sweden. Guys, you know what she’s been going through… You guys gold me to invite her and you all know that she’s coming.” Sorry, C-Money, I’m Team Guys on this one!!! Christian: A dogshit boyfriend and an EVEN WORSE DEAD-DOGSHIT friend, and that’s the Christian Guarantee!
Dani asks Pelle for a little more info about this midsummer party and he says it’s just “A nine-day festival my family’s doing, lots of pageantry, special ceremonies and dressing up.” Pelle says he lost his parents too1, so he has some kind of idea about what it feels like to have your sister murder your dad and mom and then herself and then your boyfriend who’s high on pizza says “so what’s the sister situation”? Sure thing, buddy!
They get to Sweden and they are just driving and driving.
Mark: “Oh my god, the women here—what is it that makes them hotter?”
Josh: “The Vikings grabbed all the best babes from other countries and dragged them over.”
Mark: “Christian, you can do your thesis on that!”
Literally, Christian! I would read it! Sounds lurid!
There’s a big banner over the road that’s like STOPPA HALSINGLAND but they do not stoppa. They come to a big field with some young people lying around and Pelle is like, “These are younger people from my village. They’re also returning from their trips outside.” Then a man is shouting in Swedish! He sounds mad but he is just Pelle’s friend and they embrace like intense brothers. They converse in Swedish, and oh, it’s his brother, Ingemar, but not the real kind of brother, just best friends since they were babies. They meet Ingemar’s friends Simon and Connie from London.
Perfect timing, by the way, because Ingemar just took mushrooms five minutes ago and now it’s time for everyone to take them! Dani would prefer to feel settled before she takes the mushrooms since they literally came straight from the airport to a random field at Ymir knows what time because the sun never sets here, and Christian says he’ll wait with her but he’s obviously being a bitch about it and Mark and Pelle are mad: “Dude, we can’t take them at different times—they’ll be totally separate trips!” So then DANI is like NO IT’S FINE I’M READY!
Dani!!!!! Grow a spine one time! I hope that’s the point of this mooooooooovie!!!!!!!!!!!
>;-)
Now they are all tripping for a while beneath the midnight sun but then Dani remembers it’s almost her birthday and flips out and runs away into a little red hut. I don’t remember what this little red hut actually was—all I wrote down in my notes is that it had a “creepy distorted mirror inside no thanks”—but can I use this as an opportunity to pretend it was an outhouse (maybe it was??) so I can teach you my favorite Norwegian word???
UTEDO!!!!!!!
Pronounced OOT-uh-DOO. Have you ever crapped anywhere as cute as the utedo? The utedo is my death cult!
Dani passes out for six hours and now it’s tomorrow. Pelle’s like ok now it’s time to go to the MAIN EVENT. They hike for soooooooo long to leave the peaceful womb of the mushroom field, then come out into a big other field with a crooked house and three boys playing little flutes. Is this supposed to be creepy? This is exactly what my family reunions are like!
Now it’s time to do a tribute to Ymir and someone says something about “nature’s hermaphrodite” and Josh says, “I think the Sakhis do the same thing in Brahjdoomi,” and like dude SHUT UP. When I was about to graduate from college in 2004 I asked my fave Professor Stocking if he thought I should go to grad school for Comp Lit and he said I could if I wanted to but tbh I would hate it because it’s full of pains in my ass like CHRISTIAN and JOSH. Those characters didn’t exist yet but in retrospect that’s exactly what he was saying! No thanks! I became an e-mail clown instead!
An old lady hops up and says it has been 90 years since their last great feast and it will be 90 years until their next one, so “Let our nine-day feast commence. Skal!” Okay, so some people live and die their whole life with NO FEAST? That’s messed up!
Now there is a torch ceremony where people are saying very solemn things like “This high my fire. No higher, no hotter,” and “Spirits! Back to the dead!” and I WOULD get the giggles and be executed.
The Swedes dance around and do this special breathing thing where they’re like HOO-HAH-HAH and maybe that’s what’s supposed to be soooooooo creepy about this movie? But it just reminded me of my great aunties!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The kids are playing a game called “skin the fool,” and I know Ibsen isn’t Chekhov but I think even Ibsen could tell you that’s coming back later! Ja, sure, ya betcha!
Mark makes eye contact with a hottie and asks to join in the Swedish dancing, then Pelle gives Dani a portrait he drew of her in a special hat and she’s like wow thanks! Meanwhile, CHRISTIAN FORGOT IT WAS HER BIRTHDAY.
Dani: “No, I forgot to remind him, and It’s not his fault.”
Great news for the fool: SKIN ME INSTEAD.
Ingemar mentions that he was dating Connie when she started dating Simon and Connie is like umm we had been on ONE date and I didn’t even know it was a date. Brang-brang! Ibsen alert!!!!! Ibsen sez: ikke glem!
They see a little yellow triangle house and Ingemar says it’s a secret ceremonial hut that no one’s allowed to go in. There’s a bear, which I hate, free all animals and never let them die, and then they look at a tapestry with a special love story where a woman cuts her pubes off and cooks them into a stew to make her crush fall in love with her. Ever wonder how I got two spouses?? It took a LOTTA PUBES.
There’s a big bunkhouse where all of the young people live together and sleep inside wooden clogs. Pelle explains that life is like the seasons: You’re a child till you’re 18, which is spring, then 18 to 36 you go on pilgrimage and it’s summer, and then you’re an adult from 36 to 72, which is autumn.
Some Fool: “What happens after 72?”
Pelle: ha ha ha silence
Dani finds a wall with pictures of all the former May Queens and Pelle explains that to become the May Queen you have to win the dance contest. Sounds pretty groovy! Some hot chick is like hey the kids are watching Austin Powers in the south house if you guys wanna go and Mark is like, “I want to give her a bath.” HE is the Austin Powers of the friend group!
Christian takes Dani outside and sings happy birthday (because someone tipped him off—NOT because he remembered) with a piece of cake which I don’t know where he got it. Dani does BIG BREATH and blows out the candle. Again with the breathing! It is not scary to breathe! NOT breathing is the scary one of the two!
They go to bed in the bunkhouse and Pelle says they have to be rested for the first big day of ceremonies tomorrow: the Attestupa. Josh secretly knows that it is but he won’t tell, which, once you DO know what it is, is SUPER FUCKED UP to not tell. You should have warned everyone about Attestupa and gotten written consent BEFORE YOU LEFT FOR SWEDEN, DUDE.
Dani: “Is it scary?”
Josh: [SMILEY FACE]
Dani wakes up at night and looks up at a mural of a guy stabbing himself and the sun (who can EFFF OFF, as far as I’m concerned) smiling about it. In the morning they do Swedish Butoh. Now they all stand at this long table forever while two old people do breathing, then Barron Trump rings a bell.
It’s time to eat! Mark is unhappy: “Dude, Im so hungry. It’s like they’re trying to make it gross.” Everyone knows a real man can’t Attestupa without hot cheeseburger egg rolls and donkey sauce!
Not to keep being all I’M NORWEGIAN at you, but what could they possibly be eating that’s gross? Cold cuts and yogurt? A handful of berries? Gross is not Scandinavia’s problem—boring is the problem. When I went to my first family reunion in Norway in 1992, I made up this song to the tune of “Deep in the Heart of Texas”:
They’ve got some bread and jam and lots of cheese and ham (clap clap clap clap)
It’s breakfast time in Norway
They’ve got some bread and jam and lots of cheese and ham (clap clap clap clap)
It’s time for lunch in Norway
They’ve got some bread and jam and lots of cheese and ham (clap clap clap clap)
It’s dinner time in Norway
They’ve got some bread and jam and lots of cheese and ham (clap clap clap clap)
That’s what they eat in Norway!
Yes, I know the comedy is very sophisticated! Thank you for noticing!
The main old man and old woman just sit very still and don’t talk or eat, and then they stand up and chant and breathe in Swedish and
I WOULD HAVE
THE GIGGLES
FOR SURE.
Then some men come and pick up the old man and woman and carry them away and all the other people get up and follow them except for Mark who goes to take a nap. YOU FLEW TO SWEDEN FOR THIS, MARK! Pushing through the jet lag is the only way you’ll get on a regular schedule!
Everybody gathers at Pride Rock and watches as the guys carry the old people up to the top where there are a bunch of spooky rune stones. This lady who’s, like, the mayor? reads from a special book. Pelle tells Josh that it’s “the Rubi Radr, our scripture.” Josh asks if he can read it too and Pelle says hell nei.
The old people hold out their hands and the chair-carriers SLICE THEM, and then they rub their bloody hands on the rune rocks, and then the old lady (Rifiki) walks out on to Pride Rock and plays an invisible trumpet (Pumbaa’s butt). Dani starts hyperventilating and the woman looks right at her and Dani calms down and then the woman jumps off the cliff and belly flops on to a boulder and her face explodes!!!!!!! Whoopsie-daisy!
Simon starts freaking out but Ingemar is like, “It’s fine. It’s part of the thing.” Ohhhhh, okay, lol, I didn’t know it was part of the thing. (It being part of the thing is WORSE!) The other Swedish people are looking at Simon like wtf is up with this guy who doesn’t know about the part of the thing when Rifiki kook-slams into the rocks???
And NEXT, the old MAN walks up to the edge and Simon yells “SIR, DON’T JUMP! DON’T JUMP!” as though the guy is just like not paying that good of attention and it hadn’t occurred to him to not jump, but obviously he jumps anyway. Unfortunately he just gets all messed up but does not die so everyone starts moaning and then they’re like “get the hammer!” and the Hammer Brothers come and hammer him right on the face! And they show it! And look. I’m not particularly into graphic violence and I don’t, like, yearn to watch this moment again, but it’s not SCARY.
Connie flips out and the mayor lady tells her to pop a chill pill: “Those two who jumped have just reached the end of their Harga life cycle and what you just saw is a great joy for them… Instead of getting old and dying in pain and fear and shame we give our lives as a gesture before it can spoil!” (Counterpoint: those people were not that old??????) Then they burn the smooshed corpses in a fire. And everyone loves it!!!
Dani needs to step away for a moment and gasp loudly by herself, so Christian goes back to the bunkhouse where Josh is furiously typing up his notes on the Old People Garbage Disposal Ceremony. Josh says he was not disturbed by the Attestupa at all, no biggie, it’s going to be great for his thesis. But then Christian reveals that he’s been thinking a lot about HIS thesis and he’s decided he’s going to do it here, on the Harga, and he wanted to tell Josh first, so it didn’t seem like he wasn’t telling him.
Josh is like um but I’m doing MY thesis on the midsommar festival, that’s literally why we’re here, and Christian is like ummmm but you’re not doing it on the COMMUNITY, and Josh is like DOOOOOOD this is unethical and leechy and lazy and frankly kind of sad!!! He’s right! They bicker! Eventually Christian is just like I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY, I’m going to do my thesis here and there’s no buts about it.
Yes, definitely my first instinct after watching the Hammer Bros in action would be “I WANT TO STAY HERE LONGER.”
Meanwhile, Dani is packing her bag and Pelle is like heyyyyyy come on, sit down, killing the old people with a hammer is actually awesome and u gotta stay, we got lots of more fun rituals coming up! We’re going to kill a dog with a knife and fork!
Pelle: “I know what you’re going through”
Dani: “What am I going through????”
Pelle: “I lost my parents when I was a little boy—they burned up in a fire! My parents burned up in a fire and I became technically an orphan!”
Okay, MAN, you don’t have to sound so excited about it!
Pelle says that despite his parents burning up in a fire he had a chill life anyway because he was raised by a community that does not bicker, UNLIKE Christian and Josh. Then he segues seamlessly from having dead parents who burned up in a fire to wanting to burn up Dani’s vagina with his fire penis: “[Josh] is my good friend and I love him, but do you feel held by him? Does he feel like home to you?”
Dani at this point is looking 10% more Swedish. She confronts Christian about the ceremonial murder of it all and Christian says it’s just cultural differences and they really need to acclimate. lmao ok.
Dani asks Josh for a sleeping pill and she wakes up in the middle of the night into a dream sequence where everyone is gone. She sees them all sneaking out and abandoning her and she goes outside and hears a car engine start and they all drive away without her and Mark laughs! (I have a similar dream about my family and friends ALL THE TIME—that’s not a joke, it’s just low self-esteem!) Dani screams and black smoke comes out of her mouth and she sees the hammered old people and her parents and her sister.
But in the morning none of it is true—they did not leave without her! Everyone is still stuck there in this definitely-gonna-kill-you valley! Why, though!? These guys Harga’d their own grandma and grandpa—you think they’re not gonna Harga you too????
Everyone is still asleep. Dani peeks around and THIS creep is staring at her and making a [SOFT RATTLING].
I hate when a Swede stares at me in the night and makes a soft rattling! The rattling witch creeps over to the drawer at the foot of Christian’s bed and MEDDLES something SUSPICIOUS looking for its PRECIOUS.
Back at the fairgrounds they take the ashtray out from under the old people fire and empty it. Gotta clear out in time for the Gathering of the Juggalos!
Josh goes to say what’s up to Pelle who is cutting herbs with some tiny scissors. In the background some old people are smashing a sawhorse and singing their sawhorse smashing song! Pelle tells Josh okay—the old people said you can write about our festival but you have to share all your research with Christian because he asked me first.
I’m sorry—isn’t the whole reason Josh came is that he’s writing about this for his midsummer festival thesis??? Why is Pelle acting SURPRISED that Josh wants to write about this???? Irrelevant but annoying! Christian literally could not have asked him first, because JOSH’S THESIS IS LITERALLY WHY THEY PLANNED THE TRIP.
Josh shows Pelle the thingy that the creep girl put under Christian’s bed and Pelle is like “oh that’s just a love rune, nbd.”
Now at this point in my notes, here is what I typed:
“She just gbot th4e byxmyndlig las years
You are allowed to have sex. pants license” – Pelle
Sure! Okey dokey! That’s probably what Christian’s PhD notes are gonna look like.
Mark has to take a piss so he goes over to pee on some old log but turns out it is actually the sacred log full of old people ashes. He gets in BIG TROUBLE.
Some Swede: “That tree is tied to all of our dead!”
Ulf: [ULF SOBBING]
Mark: “I just had to pee! I didn’t know it was special!”
Connie sees Dani at the bunkhouse and Father Odd is like “oh btw Connie, Simon told me to tell you that Jan drove him to the train station and after he gets dropped off he’s sending the truck back and you’ll meet him there because the truck only had room for two.” Connie is NOT buying it (“that doesn’t make any sense—he would have told me”) but for some reason does not RUN AWAY. Father Odd is like well it takes 35 minutes. Toodle-oo!
Dani, troubled by the sudden disappearance of Simon immediately after he denounced the sacred ritual grandpa murder, tells Christian that Simon left without Connie and doesn’t that seem weird? And Christian is like oh damn that sucks, but speaking of couples, “Is there ever an issue here with incest?” Hahahaha Christian is a psycho.
Swede: “Well, the bloodlines are very well-preserved, so the elders must approve mates. Cousins can sometimes mate, but we do respect the incest taboo, so we often need to invite outside people.”
Some Swedish gals ask Dani if she wants to help them in the kitchen. They’re making meat tarts. If these are Simon tarts, I swear to god!!!!!!!!
OMG the redheaded night creeper put her pubes in that pie and she’s gonna feed it to Christian just like in the mural!!!!!! L M A O O O O O O O O O O O He deserves it!!! No, you know what? He actually DOESN’T deserve it. He isn’t even good enough to eat her pubes! Aim higher, girlie!
Some old guy is teaching Josh about the Rubi Radr and says that there’s a secret disabled person (?) who is their oracle who draws stuff and they interpret it and that’s their religion: “Rubin is unclouded by normal cognition. It makes him open to the source.”
Josh: “What happens when Rubin dies? Do you just wait for a baby that is… not clouded?”
Old Guy: “No, no, Rubin was a product of inbreeding. All of our oracles are deliberate products of inbreeding.”
HOH KAY DOH KAY
[WOMAN SCREAMS IN DISTANCE]
Dani takes pies out of the oven
[WOMAN SCREAMS IN DISTANCE]
Nobody seems that worried
Mark is just standing around and some chick is looking at him erotically outside the secret yellow triangle house. It’s time for supper! They all sit down at the weird table and a lady gives Christian his pie like SMIRK. You KNOW that’s a Simon pie and it’s got pubes in it! And maybe his juice is period blood? The guy who got mad about the log is staring at Mark and everyone’s like dang where’s Connie and a weird Swede is like HELLO I KNOW THE ANSWER I DROVE HER TO THE TRAIN STATION BYE BYE!
Dani to Christian: “I could see you possibly doing that.” (i.e. ditching her and going to the train without her)
Christian: “What the hell does that mean?”
Dani: “Nevermind.”
Lol
You get him, Dani!!!
Josh asks Christian if he learned anything about the Rubi Radr and Christian is like oh NOW you want to collaborate????
THEN CHRISTIAN PULLS A FLAMIN’ HOT PUBE OUT OF HIS PIE
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA
The hot girl comes and gets Mark and takes him away to “show him” something, which he thinks means her flamin’-hot Simon-pie but really means certain death.
Now it’s nighttime in the bunkhouse and Josh is stressed for some reason. He goes to sleep with his shoes on. Dani takes another sleeping pill. Josh sneaks out to go try and take pictures of the Rubi Radr in the crooked house. No man u can’t do that! Not in the crooked house! Yeah I’m sure they won’t be mad about this at all! Someone’s coming up behind him but oh nevermind it’s just Mark. But Mark is all fucked up! Then someone hammers Josh on the head! And it isn’t Mark—it’s someone wearing Mark’s face? Rubin the Rubi Radr?
At breakfast a mournful Swede is like, “We have something regretful to announce. This morning the 19th book of Rubi Radr was found missing from the temple.”
They don’t want to point fingers but it was OBVIOUSLY THE AMERICANS WHO ARE WRITING THEIR THESIS ON THE RUBI RADR. The elders say the person needs to just return the book, no questions asked, no big deal. (Okay, but also, Josh was hammer-bro’d before he could steal the book, so is this just a false flag?)
Swede: “Where is your friend, Josh? He and your other friend, they both disappears the same day.”
Christian is like dude it was definitely Josh and he is NOT EVEN OUR FRIEND. Damn, bro! The elders say Pelle has to go look for the book since this is kind of his fault. Dani goes to work with the women for the day and she gets a special Swedish dress and they all get to wear flower crowns and drink flower juice!
They drink the juice and then inhale and exhale sharply! Now Dani is once again trippin’! An old Swedish lady says the “Black One” (hmm) lured the girls of Harga to dance until they died, so now they dance and the last one who survives wins.
Meanwhile, Christian visits the mayor. She makes him sit across from her and he’s like look I do NOT know where Josh is.
The Mayor: “How do you feel about Maja [pube girl]? You have been approved to mate with her. You are an ideal astrological match, and she has fixed her hopes on you.”
Christian: “I think I ate one of her pubic hairs.”
The Mayor: “Sounds probably right.”
Meanwhile at the maypole Dani is FEELING IT. This is why men are bad I think? Look how fun it is to hang out with your gal pals! The dance changes and girls start falling down a little bit. Uh oh, Maja fell down and she’s out. She walks past Christian and looks at him all horny on flower juice. Bro, Dani is so good at the maypole dancing!!! Dani is one of the Top 8 of the dancers and she’s really excited until she sees that Christian is not excited for her AT ALL. HE IS ALWAYS DEFLATING HER. I HOPE HE DOESN’T DIE AT THE END!
>:-D
A girl brings Christian “spring water with special properties” that “breaks down your defenses and opens you for the influence.” Christian is like no thx I’m worried I’ll have a bad trip but she’s like no no u won’t so HE DRINKS IT. Dude could 1 person in this movie trust their instincts 1 time??
Dani is having the time of her life. Now she can magically speak Swedish! The last two girls crash into each other and fall down and now holy shit! DANI IS MAY QUEEN! Dani really needed a win right now!
Swedes: “You are our May Queen!”
Dani: “Me? Why?”
Swedes: “You won!”
Then Pelle NON-CONSENSUALLY TONGUE-KISSES HER, which is a bold move to make on the QUEEN. Decapitate him with a flamingo!!!
Now it’s lunch time. They’re having Josh Juice and Mark Steak! Dani is still trippin’. Christian sits down, he is also trippin’. Some Swede comes and forces Dani to eat an entire herring for good luck, tail first. Once again I am begging you: please stop copying my family traditions without asking first!
Christian looks across the table at Maja who is like hey big boy let’s get out of here a-ooga but with her EYES. But he doesn’t get out of here a-ooga—he just sits there and sways around. The mayor says that Dani has to go bless the crops and the livestock now. Dani asks if Christian can come (WHY) but the mayor is like absolutely not, you need to DUMP HIM GIRL.
Dani takes a torch and climbs into the PRINCESS BUGGY which is actually the same car I got for my 16th birthday!!!!! It’s a Swede-drawn carriage! All the girls pull the carriage and run alongside it doing a weird dance and smiling. Christian is like uuuhhhhhhh that’s my fetish?
Then when Dani is gone some lady makes a path of rose petals to lead Christian to the sex barn.
Dani watches the gals bury some meat and grains and juice and she blesses it? I guess? DEFINITELY HUMAN MEAT!
Lolololol then someone’s like, “Repeat after me: [SINGS EXTREMELY HIGH IN SWEDISH]”
That’s a prank! But she does pretty good, I guess!
Christian gets a special outfit and they give him a Starbys to sober him up. Hey could I get an egg bite or something too?
Then spaghetti-face is like okay come in here, it’s time to impregnate Maja! There’s like 12 naked women in the sex barn and Maja is lying on some flowers. There’s no way they do this EVERY TIME someone wants to have sex.
Bye, spaghetti-face!
Now we have to see Christian’s penis!
Now Christian does sex with Maja. Okay, you can’t just LIE ON FLOWERS. It’s pokey! Maja reaches up to her… mom? WHO COMES OVER TO HOLD HER HAND WHILE CHRISTIAN IS HUMPING ON HER and for a second he is like… say what?? But then he and the mom make eye contact and she’s like, “EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!”
So he gets his boner back!
Randy the Rani Roger is… watching?
The gals try to take Dani to a special party just for Queens but she overhears the fuckfest going on in the crooked house and she’s like I JUST KNOW the Rani Roger is watching Christian fuck in there!!!!! She knows that 14 women yelling “YAAA-UHHHHH! yAAA-UHHHHH! EEEEEEEEEEE!” is the sound Christian always makes in the sack!
She peeps through the keyhole and sees the pumping, so she’s all UUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHH BAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRFFFFFFF and the girl squad comes to get her and takes her to lie down. She is LOSING IT. They help her calm down with their special breathing techniques! Just like my therapist!
All the ladies do primal scream together over and over in rhythm and meanwhile in the barn AN OLD WOMAN IS PUSHING ON CHRISTIAN’S BUTT TO MAKE HIM PLUNGE HARDER!! He jisms and now Maja is pregnant. And that’s romance!
Christian runs outside w his weeenur out and he runs and runs and then he finds Josh’s dead leg sticking out of the raised beds! He runs to the chicken house and the chickens r CLUCKIN’ about something. He turns around and it’s Simon! He’s all hanging up from the ceiling being used as a chicken perch and they did that thing where they pull your lungs out your back while you’re still alive that people are always claiming is real on Quora!
Christian turns around and an old fogey blows durt in his face but it’s DRUG DIRT. He’s knocked out. Now Christian wakes up and he can’t speak or move. Dani is in the flower chair in a flower cone.
Turns out, here’s the deal:
This is the Harga’s whole THING.
They’re sacrificing 9 people total.
Four “new bloods.” (Simon and Connie, who Ingemar brought as revenge for being friendzoned, and Josh and Mark, who Pelle brought because he’s a slimy slange!)
Four Harga. (That’s Nana and Pop Pop, plus two TBD.)
And 1 chosen by the queen (DANI).
Ingemar and Ulf volunteer to be the two extra Harga sacrificed (except I thought this whole deal was about letting the old people go out on top?).
Now they use an old-timey bingo machine to choose a Harga for Dani’s final choice. She has to pick between a random Harga and… uh oh! Not Christian!!!!!! And she’s like HMMMMMMMM thinking all hard about who to pick!!!!! Lol! And then she picks Christian anyway!!!!!!!!
You’d really be THIS MAD that your shitty boyfriend got high on juice and humped pube girl????
(Damn, remember earlier when Mark pissed on the Temple of the Sacred Ashes? That’s not really relevant to this moment, but what a thing to do. They should really put up a sign though!)
The Harga throw all the dead people in wheelbarrows and take them to the yellow triangle house and sit them up on hay bales like it’s time 2 watch the barn dance!! Worst corn maze ever!!! Then they butcher the bear (NOOOOOOOOOOO) and pull all its insides out and then they put CHRISTIAN IN THE BEAR LIKE A LITTLE SUIT.
Spaghetti face is BACK! They give poison to the Harga volunteers, which is nice, but not to Christian, which is petty. Then they set the whole building on fire. Christian’s like HEY CAN I INTERVIEW U FOR MY THESIS?? DOES THE BEEEEAR SYMBOLIIIIIZE SOOOOOMETHIIIIIIING????
Everyone dances around and freaks out like YESSSSSS! WE DID IT! And Dani finally smiles! Women ask for so little!
HAHAHAHAHA THIS MOVIE WAS NOT SCARY AT ALL. WHY DID PEOPLE SAY THIS MOVIE WAS SCARY? Does the rest of the world think that Scandinavians are inherently spooky? Or am I just… brave as hell?
I loved this movie so much that I spent over $40 on an incense burner in the shape of the temple where Christian was burned alive from the A24 online store.
>B-D
In conclusion, this is why you should only trust Norwegians and never Swedes!!!!!!! And ALWAYS TRUST KNITTING CELEBRITIES!
Spoiler: the movie sort of implies that Pelle’s parents died in the last Midsommar ritual but that was… 90 years ago? So that would make Pelle… … … at least 90 years old? I mean I guess they could have just both died in a regular fire but what a weird symmetry to set up and then do nothing with!
So good (as always), Lindy! Sincerely, Terri, age 42 😀
YAY a new Butt News, and for one of my favorite movies!
The thing about Pelle's parents always bothered me too. In my mind I'm like - well, maybe they have smaller festivals w/ less sacrifices sometimes and they died that way?? That's my theory.
Agree that this movie isn't scary at ALL but it's genuinely enjoyable. Have you seen The Wicker Man (original, not Nicholas Cage one - although, lol, I'd love a Butt News about that version!)? Very similar vibe/aesthetic. Folk horror is the BEST.