Ari Aster’s hit horror epic Midsommar ends on a truly unnerving note with an ambiguous final scene that’s open to interpretation. Midsommar stars Florence Pugh as Dani Ardor, grieving after a devastating family tragedy, and Jack Reynor as Christian, her gaslighting boyfriend, who bring their toxic romance to a Swedish commune called the Hårga for a midsummer festival that turns out to be the work of a sinister cult obsessed with human sacrifice. Although Dani is initially disturbed by the cult’s murderous rituals, she ends up embracing them as a way of processing her grief when she’s crowned the May Queen and given some control for the first time in months.
The critical acclaim and cultural significance of Midsommar rejuvenated the folk horror subgenre long after its Wicker Man heyday. Like Aster’s previous leading lady Toni Collette in Hereditary, Pugh’s powerful performance as Dani is a cut above the standard of acting in the horror genre. Midsommar managed to terrify audiences in broad daylight. Any horror movie can frighten viewers in the ominous darkness of night. In Midsommar, there is no darkness at night; it’s light out around the clock, and Aster used that light to expose some truly unsettling sights.
Every horror movie needs a disturbing ending that leaves audiences suitably horrified as they leave the theater. From the decades-old photo of Jack Torrance at the end of The Shining to the poorly timed kills at the end of The Mist to the Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge-style reveal at the end of The Descent, there are many great horror movie endings. With a burning temple, a disemboweled bear, and Dani’s maniacal smile, the ambiguous ending of Midsommar is a prime example.
What Happens At The End Of Midsommar?
After most of their friends have been picked off, the cultists separate Dani and Christian and trick them into taking a powerful hallucinogen. Under the influence of this hallucinogen, Dani takes part in a maypole dancing contest with all the other women. She wins the contest and gets crowned the May Queen of the festival. Meanwhile, Christian is coerced into partaking in a sexual ritual that involves impregnating Maja, a young member of the Hårga who’s been flirting with him the whole movie. As Dani is paraded around the commune to celebrate her victory as the May Queen, she’s taken to witness Christian cheating on her with Maja, which triggers a panic attack.
After the ritual is over, in a subversion of horror cinema’s usual use of gratuitous female nudity, a naked Christian flees through the commune and stumbles upon Josh’s severed leg sticking out of a flowerbed and Simon’s corpse displayed as a blood eagle in a barn. When one of the elders finds Christian, he paralyzes him ahead of the final ceremony. The cultists explain to Dani that the final ceremony requires nine human sacrifices to purge the commune of evil elements. Four of these sacrifices are members of the commune and four of them are outsiders brought in by Pelle and Ingemar: Mark, Josh, Simon, and Connie. As May Queen, Dani gets to choose the ninth and final sacrifice. Her options are Christian, her uncaring, unfaithful boyfriend, or a random member of the Hårga.
Dani chooses Christian, whose paralyzed body is shoved into a hollowed-out bear carcass and left inside a triangular wooden temple with the other sacrifices. The commune members who volunteered to be sacrificed are given a drug that will alleviate the pain of death, but Christian is left to feel everything. The temple is set on fire and the sacrifices inside are burned alive. As they shriek in their final moments, the commune members collectively mimic their shrieks (as they did with Maja’s orgasmic moans and Dani’s cries of panic). At first, Dani weeps in anguish, but her look of horror gradually turns into a beaming smile – her first smile of the movie.
What Is The Meaning Of Midsommar's Celebration?
The point of the sadistic fiery sacrifice at the end of Midsommar, as the commune leaders explain, is to purge the Hårga of its evil. This is somewhat ironic because, from the outsiders’ perspective, time-tested traditions like taking a sledgehammer to the skulls of the elderly are what make the Hårga evil. The anti-evil ceremony turned out to be more meaningful for Dani than anyone else in the Hårga. Whether or not the burning of the temple actually purges the commune of evil as intended, it certainly purged Dani of her emotional pain. Dani, like many people with anxiety, craves control over her life, but hasn’t had any control for a long time.
She had no control in her relationship with a man who kept secrets from her, cheated on her, and desperately wanted to break up with her. She had no control over her sister’s decision to murder-suicide her entire family. She had no control over all the drugging and lying and killing that went on at the commune. When she was given the choice to sacrifice Christian to rid the Hårga of evil, she finally gained some control and it allowed her to move on and be happy.