In the misty pines of Sweden, where ancient gods whisper through the trees and sun-drenched meadows hide blood-soaked altars, two films have redefined folk horror for a disenchanted age.

Modern cinema’s folk horror renaissance finds its twin pinnacles in David Bruckner’s The Ritual (2017) and Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019), both transplanting British genre traditions to the stark landscapes of Scandinavia. These films pit urban survivors against resurgent pagan forces, blending psychological unraveling with visceral myth-making. By contrasting their approaches, we uncover how folk horror evolves from quaint village dread to a mirror for contemporary existential woes.

  • Both films harness Swedish isolation to revive folk horror’s core motifs of nature’s wrath and communal rituals, diverging in tone from nocturnal gloom to relentless daylight.
  • Grief emerges as the emotional fulcrum, transforming personal loss into supernatural incursions that question modernity’s grip on the soul.
  • Through innovative visuals and sound, they cement folk horror’s place in the 21st century, influencing a wave of genre hybrids.

Reviving the Wicker Man Spirit

Folk horror, as articulated by enthusiasts like Mark Gatiss, thrives on the collision between rational outsiders and irrational rural traditions. Films like Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) set the template: civilised interlopers ensnared by pagan holdouts, their disbelief crumbling under ritualistic horror. The Ritual and Midsommar inherit this blueprint but update it for streaming-era sensibilities, swapping Scottish isles for Sweden’s vast forests and communes. Bruckner’s adaptation of Adam Nevill’s 2011 novel deploys a quartet of hikers mourning a lost friend, their trek through the Nordic wilderness awakening eldritch entities. Aster’s tale, meanwhile, follows a grieving American woman to a remote Hårga village for a midsummer festival that spirals into ceremonial atrocity.

This Scandinavian pivot is no coincidence. Sweden’s folklore, rich with tales of forest trolls and fertility cults, provides fertile ground. Both films draw from real mythologies—the Jötunn giants in The Ritual, evoking Norse sagas, and Midsommar’s maypole dances mirroring actual Swedish solstice customs twisted into nightmare. Production notes reveal Bruckner’s team scouting genuine Swedish backwoods for authenticity, while Aster’s crew built the Hårga sets in Hungary to capture verdant otherworldliness. These choices ground the supernatural in tangible cultural unease, making the horror feel like a reclamation of suppressed histories.

Yet divergence marks their kinship. The Ritual clings to shadows and fog, its handheld camerawork evoking found-footage panic amid endless pines. Midsommar flips the script with saturated daylight, where horrors unfold in plain sight under an unblinking sun. This contrast underscores folk horror’s versatility: one burrows into primal darkness, the other exposes communal madness in broad illumination.

Trails of Torment: Dissecting The Ritual

The Ritual opens with raw urban grief—four friends, led by Rafe Spall’s haunted Luke, commemorate their fallen mate Hutch by hiking Sweden’s remote trails. A shortcut through forbidden woods unleashes hallucinations, gutted animals, and a towering, antlered abomination straight from Norse lore. Bruckner masterfully layers escalating dread: initial disorientation gives way to visions of domestic failure, culminating in a cult worshipping the creature as a god of the hunt.

Key scenes amplify isolation’s toll. The deer’s carcass strung like a runic effigy signals incursion, its entrails steaming in the cold. Luke’s solo night terror, pinned by the beast’s gaze, employs practical effects—a towering suit with elongated limbs—to convey incomprehensible scale. Sound design peaks here: guttural roars blend with distorted folk chants, rooting the monster in pagan antiquity. Spall’s performance anchors the chaos, his breakdown from sceptic to sacrificial lamb raw and relatable.

Production hurdles shaped its grit. Shot in low-budget tandem with XXXL, Bruckner maximised natural light and Arri Alexa for moody realism. Nevill’s novel influenced fidelity, yet the film amplifies psychological horror, using flashbacks to dissect male friendship’s fragility under duress. Critics praised its restraint, avoiding jump scares for creeping inevitability.

Class undertones simmer beneath. These middle-class lads, escaping routine via “extreme” tourism, confront nature’s indifference—a jab at performative masculinity in neoliberal times. The cult’s runes and offerings evoke Viking resentment towards soft moderns, positioning The Ritual as folk horror’s blue-collar rage.

Sunlit Sacrifices: Midsommar’s Fever Dream

Aster’s Midsommar thrusts Dani (Florence Pugh) into Hårga after family tragedy, tagging along with boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) to a ninety-day festival. What begins as quirky ethnography—flower crowns, communal meals—unravels into ritual killings, blood eagles, and mate selection via hallucinogenic teas. The film’s 168-minute runtime allows immersion, each ceremony building from folk custom to grotesque climax.

Iconic sequences sear the retina. The ättestupa cliff jumps, captured in long takes with hidden wires for visceral impact, blend ethnography and atrocity. Pugh’s wail of release during the final dance, legs buckling in cathartic spasm, rivals any horror scream. Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski’s wide lenses distort the commune into a psychedelic labyrinth, flowers blooming amid gore like Bosch paintings.

Aster drew from his own anxieties, scripting post-breakup trauma into Dani’s arc. Hårga’s elders, with their symmetrical dwellings and runic attire, parody utopian communes, their senescence cult inverting youth worship. Practical effects shine: the bear suit finale, meticulously crafted latex, merges man and myth in fiery consummation.

Gender flips folk horror norms. Women orchestrate the rites—Siv’s herbal lore, Maja’s seductive fertility—empowering Dani’s ascension as May Queen. This subverts Wicker Man‘s misogyny, critiquing patriarchal relationships through Christian’s infidelity amid phallic maypoles.

Grief’s Monstrous Face

Central to both is bereavement’s alchemy into horror. Luke’s guilt over Hutch’s pub brawl death manifests as the creature’s judgement; Dani’s family slaughter births Hårga’s surrogate embrace. These films posit loss as portal to the folkloric, where personal voids invite communal possession.

Psychoanalytic lenses reveal more. Luke’s visions replay failures, the monster embodying superego wrath. Dani’s visions, drug-fuelled mirrors of her pain, evolve into empowerment. Performances elevate: Spall’s quiet rage, Pugh’s operatic sobs—both Oscar-calibre in genre confines.

This theme resonates post-2010s, amid mental health reckonings. Folk horror here diagnoses modernity’s isolation, offering mythic belonging at sanity’s cost.

Paganism Versus Progress

Both indict secular drift. The Ritual‘s cult preaches nature’s dominance over tech-addled lives; Hårga’s cycles mock linear time. Yet nuance abounds: the hikers reject salvation, choosing death; Dani embraces rebirth.

Cultural echoes abound. Sweden’s secularism contrasts pagan undercurrents, films tapping immigration fears and eco-anxiety. Global warming looms in endless woods, unyielding sun.

Visual Symphonies of Dread

Cinematography defines distinction. The Ritual‘s Steadicam prowls fog-shrouded trails, negative space amplifying threat. Midsommar‘s shallow depth saturates frames, foreground blooms blurring ritual horrors.

Effects innovate: Ritual‘s animatronic beast blends CGI seamlessly; Midsommar‘s prosthetics endure scrutiny. Both elevate genre craft.

Aural Hauntings

Soundtracks mesmerise. Ritual‘s drone folk, by Ben Frost, mimics ritual chants. Midsommar‘s score, Bobby Krlic’s choral hums, swells with dissonance.

Diegetic cues—cracking branches, keening winds—immerse, proving audio’s primacy in folk unease.

Echoes in the Genre Grove

Legacy proliferates: The Ritual spawned Netflix buzz; Midsommar a director’s cut cult. Influences ripple in Men, She Will. They prove folk horror’s endurance, blending arthouse with accessibility.

In pitting shadows against sun, these films crown folk horror’s modern diptych, warning of wilderness within.

Director in the Spotlight: Ari Aster

Ari Aster, born 1986 in New York to Jewish-American parents, immersed in cinema from youth. Raised in a creative household—his mother a storyteller— he honed craft at American Film Institute, earning MFA. Debut short The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011) shocked festivals with incestuous Oedipal horror, signalling his command of domestic unease.

Hereditary (2018) catapulted him: a $10m sleeper grossing $80m, earning A24’s highest acclaim. Tonally precise grief-to-supernatural spiral showcased his script mastery. Midsommar (2019) followed, its 171-minute cut delving deeper into trauma, lauded at Cannes. Beau Is Afraid (2023), starring Joaquin Phoenix, blended surreal comedy-horror in 179-minute odyssey, dividing critics yet affirming vision.

Influences span Bergman, Polanski, Kafka; he cites Antichrist for bold imagery. Awards include Gotham nods; collaborations with Pawel Pogorzelski persist. Upcoming Eden promises genre expansion. Aster redefines elevated horror, prioritising emotional architecture over shocks.

Filmography highlights: The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011, short)—familial abuse parable; Hereditary (2018)—inheritance of madness; Midsommar (2019)—folk trauma ritual; Beau Is Afraid (2023)—maternal paranoia epic.

Actor in the Spotlight: Florence Pugh

Florence Pugh, born 1996 in Oxford, England, to a restaurateur father and dancer mother, displayed precocity early. Home-schooled amid shyness, she trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, debuting stage in Dancing at Lughnasa. Breakthrough: The Falling (2014), earning BIFA nomination at 18 for epileptic teen role.

Hollywood beckoned with Marcella TV, then Lady Macbeth (2016)—steely period killer netting BIFA win. Midsommar (2019) globalised her: Dani’s arc from victim to queen, wrenching screams iconic. Little Women (2019) Amy March earned Oscar nod; Fighting with My Family (2019) wrestler Paige showcased comedy.

Blockbusters ensued: Black Widow (2021) Yelena Belova, spin-off star; Dune: Part Two (2024) Princess Irulan. Versatility shines in The Wonder (2022) fasting girl, Oppenheimer (2023) Jean Tatlock. BAFTA Rising Star 2021; producers covet her intensity.

Filmography: The Falling (2014)—hysteria mystery; Lady Macbeth (2016)—vengeful wife; Midsommar (2019)—grieving cult initiate; Little Women (2019)—ambitious March sister; Marianne & Leonard (2019, doc narrator); Fighting with My Family (2019)—wrestling biopic; Little Women (2019); Mank (2020)—journalist; Black Widow (2021)—spy assassin; Hawkeye (2021, series); The Wonder (2022)—nurse sceptic; Oppenheimer (2023)—physicist lover; Dune: Part Two (2024)—imperial heir; We Live in Time (2024)—romantic lead.

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Bibliography

Chilcott, R. (2018) Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange. Strange Attractor Press.

Gatiss, M. (2010) ‘A History of Horror: The Unholy Trinity’, BBC Four. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sqs96 (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

McRoy, J. (2021) ‘Folk Horror Revival: The Ritual and the Return of the Rural Repressed’, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 49(2), pp. 78-92.

Nevill, A. (2011) The Ritual. Pan Macmillan.

Parker, L. (2020) ‘Sunshine and Sadism: Ari Aster on Midsommar’, Sight & Sound, July, pp. 34-39. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Scovell, A. (2017) Folk Horror: An Afterword. Penned in the Margins.

Smith, A. (2019) ‘Grief Rituals: Trauma in Contemporary Folk Horror’, Film International, 17(3), pp. 45-60.

West, H. (2022) Ari Aster: The Making of Midsommar. Fabler Press.