In the sun-drenched fields of forgotten rituals, two films summon the primal terror of folk horror: a 1970s British nightmare and its daylight descendant.

Comparing Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) with Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019) reveals the enduring power of folk horror, a subgenre where ancient customs twist into modern dread. Both films thrust outsiders into insular communities bound by pagan rites, exposing the fragility of rationality against collective ecstasy. This analysis uncovers their shared motifs, stylistic evolutions, and profound cultural ripples, tracing how Hardy’s island cult informs Aster’s Swedish commune.

  • The ritualistic parallels in pagan revival, communal sacrifice, and the subversion of daylight as a horror canvas.
  • Stylistic shifts from gritty 1970s realism to polished millennial trauma, amplifying psychological disintegration.
  • Lasting legacies that redefine folk horror, influencing cinema from Hereditary to festival cults worldwide.

Unholy Harvest: Plot Parallels in Pagan Isolation

The narratives of The Wicker Man and Midsommar mirror each other like distorted reflections in a maypole. In Hardy’s film, devout Christian policeman Sergeant Neil Howie, portrayed by Edward Woodward, flies to the remote Hebridean island of Summerisle after receiving reports of a missing girl named Rowan. What begins as a routine investigation spirals into confrontation with a hedonistic pagan society led by the enigmatic Lord Summerisle, played by Christopher Lee. The islanders, from the seductive Willow (Britt Ekland) to the earthy schoolteacher Miss Rose (Diane Cilento), dismiss Howie’s inquiries with folk songs, fertility dances, and animal sacrifices, revealing a culture thriving on ancient Celtic rites revived by Victorian eccentricities. Howie’s horror mounts as he uncovers the truth: the girl’s ‘disappearance’ is a ploy to lure a suitable virgin king for the harvest god, culminating in his fiery demise inside a towering wicker man effigy.

Aster’s Midsommar transplants this template to the sunlit meadows of a fictional Swedish commune, Hårga. Dani Arango (Florence Pugh), reeling from a family massacre perpetrated by her bipolar sister, accompanies her dismissive boyfriend Christian Hughes (Jack Reynor) to the midsummer festival at her friend Pelle’s (Vilhelm Blomgren) invitation. The group of American outsiders—Josh (William Jackson Harper), Mark (Will Poulter), and Simon (Archie Madekwe)—arrive amid perpetual daylight, greeted by flower-crowned residents and communal meals. Initial warmth curdles as rituals escalate: an elder’s ceremonial suicide, bear-suited sacrifices, and fertility rites where Christian is coerced into impregnating Maja (Isabelle Grill). Dani’s grief evolves into reluctant queenship, mirroring Howie’s entrapment, as the film ends with outsiders burned alive in a yellow triangle temple, their deaths fertilising the fields.

Both stories weaponise isolation, stranding protagonists in verdant paradises that mask barbarity. Howie’s plane journey and boat arrival echo the Americans’ remote trek, emphasising geographical and cultural chasms. The missing girl in The Wicker Man parallels Dani’s lost family, symbols of disrupted purity demanding communal restitution. Hardy’s script, adapted from David Pinner’s novel Ritual, draws on Scottish folklore like the Taransay handfasting and Beltane fires, while Aster incorporates Hälsingland midsommar traditions, blending authenticity with invention to heighten verisimilitude.

Key distinctions sharpen the comparison. Howie embodies imperial certainty, his Christianity clashing with pagan sensuality, whereas Dani’s arc traces emotional rebirth amid betrayal, her screams evolving into communal catharsis. Production histories underscore parallels: Hardy’s film faced studio mutilations by British Lion, severing 12 minutes including vital clues, much like Aster’s 171-minute director’s cut restores nuanced horrors absent from the theatrical 147-minute version.

Sunlit Sacrifices: Thematic Bloodlines

Folk horror thrives on the collision of modernity with atavistic forces, a theme both films excavate ruthlessly. The Wicker Man critiques post-war secularism through Summerisle’s failed orchards necessitating human offering, evoking Frazer’s The Golden Bough theories of sympathetic magic. Howie’s virginity and righteousness make him the perfect ‘stranger king’, inverting Christian martyrdom into pagan renewal. Aster updates this for millennial anxieties: Midsommar‘s Hårga rituals address grief cycles every 90 years, positioning Dani’s trauma as communal property, her boyfriend’s infidelity the catalyst for separation and rebirth.

Gender dynamics diverge yet converge. Britt Ekland’s nude dance seduces Howie, embodying erotic temptation, while Pugh’s Dani transitions from hysterical victim to crowned May Queen, reclaiming agency through horror. Both explore communal vs individual will: islanders sing Howie to his death in harmonious mockery, just as Hårga’s dancers mirror Dani’s final exaltation. Class undertones simmer—Howie’s bourgeois propriety against rustic vitality, Christian’s urban apathy versus agrarian purity—echoing folk horror’s rural-urban schism.

Religion forms the ideological core. Hardy’s film pits monotheism against polytheistic abandon, quoting the Bible amid phallic symbols, whereas Aster secularises paganism into therapeutic cultism, blending runes with psychology. Trauma inheritance links them: Summerisle’s Victorian founder imposed paganism top-down, Hårga’s elders engineer psychological breaks bottom-up. These threads weave a tapestry of influence, Hardy’s film seeding Aster’s explicit engagement with loss.

Daylight’s Deception: Cinematic Sorcery

Rejecting nocturnal gloom, both films pioneer daylight horror, bathing atrocities in natural light to erode safety. Hardy’s cinematographer Jack Willis employs Hebridean sunshine to illuminate folk pageantry—the maypole dances, nude sabbaths—making horror luridly visible. Compositions frame Howie claustrophobically amid expansive landscapes, orchards dwarfing his piety. Aster’s Pawel Pogorzelski wields Swedish summer’s 24-hour light for hallucinatory saturation: wide lenses distort meadows into psychedelic voids, floral murals bleeding into reality.

Mise-en-scène pulses with symbolism. Summerisle’s inn signs depict mythic beasts, foreshadowing sacrifices; Hårga’s runic carvings and dried cats presage rituals. Set design in The Wicker Man repurposed real Scottish locations, lending authenticity, while Midsommar‘s Hungarian-built commune meticulously replicated Swedish vernacular. Editing rhythms build inexorably: Hardy’s folk songs montage Howie’s descent, Aster’s symmetrical shots enforce ritual inevitability.

Special effects, rudimentary yet effective, amplify terror. The wicker man, constructed from goat willows and scaffolded internally, burned convincingly on location, Howie’s screams piercing the blaze. Midsommar favours practical gore—eviscerations via hidden pulleys, the Ättestupa cliff jumps with stunt falls—eschewing CGI for tactile revulsion, a nod to Hardy’s low-budget ingenuity.

Songs of Summoning: Sonic Spells

Sound design elevates both to auditory nightmares. Paul Giovanni’s folk score for The Wicker Man—banshees wailing ‘Gently Johnny’, drunken sea shanties—immerses viewers in Summerisle’s soundscape, Howie’s hymns clashing discordantly. Ekland’s mimed song, dubbed by Maggie Bell, throbs with erotic percussion. Aster’s Bobby Krlic (The Haxan Cloak) crafts a minimalist tapestry: droning choirs, bone flutes, and Pugh’s raw wails crescendoing into folk harmonies, the clack of wooden clappers heralding doom.

Diegetic music binds community: islanders’ communal singing mocks Howie, Hårga’s circle dances hypnotise outsiders. Silence punctuates peaks—Howie’s final realisation amid cheers, Dani’s tearful gaze as flames rise—amplifying isolation. These sonic choices cement folk horror’s hallmark: melody as malevolence.

Performers Possessed: Acting Under the Influence

Woodward’s Howie transmutes outrage into tragic nobility, his stiff posture crumbling under sensual assault. Lee’s magisterial Lord revels in aristocratic eccentricity, quoting The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Pugh’s Dani anchors Midsommar, her hyperventilating sobs evolving into defiant poise, earning BAFTA acclaim. Reynor’s Christian slouches through passive betrayal, amplifying misogynistic inertia.

Supporting casts enhance veracity: Ingrid Julin’s Maja exudes innocent menace, Diane Cilento’s Miss Rose dispenses herbal lore with sly smiles. Performances ground supernatural in human folly, Howie’s zealotry mirroring Christian’s solipsism.

Legacy’s Long Shadow: From Cult Classic to Ari Aster

The Wicker Man‘s 1973 restoration as director’s cut revived folk horror, inspiring Kill List (2011) and Apostle (2018). Its 2006 remake flopped, underscoring Hardy’s singular vision. Midsommar grossed $48 million on $9 million budget, spawning memes and academic dissections, Aster citing Hardy directly in interviews. Both permeate culture: wicker men at festivals, midsommar floral crowns ironicised online.

Influence extends subgenre: daylight rituals in Starry Eyes, outsider sacrifices in The Ritual. They interrogate globalisation’s underbelly, where tourism meets terror, ensuring folk horror’s harvest endures.

Director in the Spotlight

Robin Hardy, born in 1929 in Surrey, England, emerged from a privileged background as the son of a wealthy businessman. Educated at Rugby School and Oxford, where he read English, Hardy initially pursued acting and television before directing. His early career included documentaries and ads, but The Wicker Man (1973) defined his legacy, a passion project greenlit by Michael Deeley after Hardy pitched it as a musical horror. Budgeted at £180,000, it faced censorship battles, Hardy reclaiming his cut in 1979.

Hardy’s oeuvre blends genre with anthropology. Post-Wicker Man, he directed The Fantasist (1986), a psychological thriller starring Moira Harris, exploring repressed desires in Ireland. The Wicker Tree (2011), his spiritual sequel, revisited pagan themes with American evangelicals in Scotland, though critically divisive. Other works include Land That Time Forgot co-direction (1974), an Amicus adventure; TV’s Captive Hearts (1987); and shorts like Devil’s Island Trial. Influences spanned Powell and Pressburger’s romanticism and Witchfinder General’s grit. Hardy lectured on folklore until his death in 2016 at 86, leaving folk horror’s torch to acolytes like Aster.

Filmography highlights: The Wicker Man (1973) – pagan masterpiece; Land That Time Forgot (1974) – Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation; The Fantasist (1986) – erotic chiller; The Wicker Tree (2011) – cult sequel. His vision prioritised ritual over gore, cementing mythic status.

Actor in the Spotlight

Florence Pugh, born January 3, 1996, in Oxford, England, to a restaurateur father and dancer mother, displayed early performing flair. Homeschooled after bullies targeted her vitiligo, she trained at the REBD schools, debuting in drama Pilot (2017). Breakthrough came with Lady Macbeth (2016), her feral Katherine earning BIFA nomination at 20.

Pugh’s trajectory skyrocketed: Midsommar (2019) showcased raw vulnerability, followed by Marvel’s Black Widow (2021) as Yelena Belova, spawning spin-off buzz. Little Women (2019) garnered Oscar nod for Amy March; Fighting with My Family (2019) her wrestler Paige. Recent roles include The Wonder (2022) historical drama, Oppenheimer (2023) Jean Tatlock, and Dune: Part Two (2024) Princess Irulan.

Awards abound: BAFTA Rising Star 2021, MTV accolades. Filmography: The Falling (2014) – school hysteria; Marcella (2016) TV; Lady Macbeth (2016); The Commuter (2018); Midsommar (2019); Little Women (2019); Marianne & Leonard doc narrator (2019); Fighting with My Family (2019); Black Widow (2021); Hawkeye series (2021); The Wonder (2022); Oppenheimer (2023); Dune: Part Two (2024). Pugh’s intensity bridges indie horror and blockbusters.

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