Editorials
How Much is ‘Midsommar’ Like a Real Swedish Midsummer Celebration?
On June 25, many Swedes gather for one of the year’s most beloved holiday celebrations: Midsummer’s Eve. It’s one of few with relatively little religious content, even though it originates from the 4th-century celebration of John the Baptist’s birth. Like many folk traditions, Midsummer is about the passing of the seasons. It falls near the summer solstice and is thematically similar to how that event has been celebrated in many cultures through the ages. People come together to share food and drink in a summery setting, around the dinner table at home, at larger gatherings in the garden, or in the form of grand communal celebrations outdoors. It’s one of the longest days of the year, luminally encouraging a late, late night of partying, and fittingly it was decided in 1953 that Midsummer’s Eve should always occur on a Friday.
But for horror fans, Swedish Midsummer only means one thing, at least since the past couple of years: the movie Midsommar (2019). Ari Aster‘s gruesome depiction of part-fictional, part actual Swedish lore in the small community of Hårga was divisive among critics and audiences at its release. The film is open to many interpretations and produces new discourse on what almost seems like a daily basis, revealing that even if not universally liked, Midsommar is one of the more talked about horror films in recent years.
In developing the script, Aster had help from set decorator Henrik Svensson in devising the Hårga cult and their customs. It consists of a rich mixture of traditions, rituals, and visuals from Swedish and other folk cultures but somehow darkly twisted. Many events in Midsommar seem out of this world, or at least so arcane that they can be presumed to have very little to do with today’s festivities surrounding Midsummer’s Eve. But in fact, there is more overlap between the fictional and the actual celebration than you would think.
Let’s break down some of the customs depicted in Midsommar and try to answer the question: Do Swedes really do this? But before we proceed, let’s get the pronunciation down once and for all. The Swedish word “midsommar” is pronounced “miss-ommar,” stressing all syllables more or less the same, and that’s that.
Attire and adornments
Although the folk garbs worn by the Hårga members are made up, it’s not uncommon to see similar clothing on Swedish Midsummer and other traditional celebrations in the country. In the old agrarian society, they were just ordinary outfits, varied with the seasons. But the national romantic movement in Europe around the turn of the 20th century picked up on this, much like with many other “peasant” customs, and members of high society started wearing folk costumes on festive occasions. While the bourgeoisie was busy cosplaying and spending a lot of time trying to create a canon of regional garments, the general population had moved on to work clothes more suited to an industrialized society. Many even considered folk costumes a symbol of an archaic and wildly unequal society that they had moved on from in the name of modernity. The community Midsummer celebration in Sweden has an air of theater, and many would consider wearing these uniforms from old times an homage more than a fashion statement, much like wearing a Santa’s hat on Christmas.
Flowers are everywhere in Midsommar and on Midsummer too. The fresh flower wreath worn on the head has become one of the immediately recognizable visuals from the movie, featured in its iconic poster. This summery accessory is actually ubiquitous during Swedish Midsummer, and you’ll see people of all ages wear them regardless of their feelings about body adornments the rest of the year. Traditionally, the wreath is made by the wearer on the same day, again connecting with the seasonal growth theme of the holiday. The full-body May Queen flower bed attire awarded to Dani towards the end is, however, an invention of the filmmakers and not a common sight in Sweden. You could think of it as an almost absurd exaggeration of existing flower-wearing traditions.
The casting of spells
Do Swedes cast love spells and hide runic totems under each other’s pillows on Midsummer? This practice is depicted in Midsommar at first as a somewhat childish make-believe game and later pointing towards something more sinister, and you would think it has little to do with modern celebrations. But Swedes will find rituals along these lines very familiar in a slightly modified form: picking the seven flowers. Midsummer is a magical night in folklore, when nature, animals, and people are more susceptible to spells and more in touch with their spiritual dimension. Thus, it’s an excellent opportunity to find out who your true love is. The way to go about it is to pick seven types of flowers, preferably jumping over seven fences in the process, then hiding them under your pillow on Midsummer’s Eve. That night your future betrothed will appear to you in a dream. In Midsommar, some Hårga women pick flowers walking backward, which is not an uncommon addition to the picking of the seven flowers tradition. Gathering the flowers in complete silence is another variation. Both these customs are about doing things out of the ordinary to break with non-magical everydayness. However, Midsommar takes a rather sweet and innocent ritual and turns it dark: instead of a self-suggestive gesture, an invasive hex pointed at Christian to muddle his mind.
Dancing around the pole
Dani has a significant emotional breakthrough in what can be considered the beginning of Midsommar‘s climax, the dance scene. The young women of Hårga are served drug-infused lemonade and invited to dance in various patterns around a decorated pole until they faint, steadily incited by droning folk music from a small ensemble and the commands of an elder. The last person standing wins the most coveted of prizes – they are crowned May Queen and revered as such for the remainder of the feast, with all sorts of peculiar ceremonies that come with the title. Dani participates in this game of endurance, at first reluctantly but with more and more glee, or something like it.
The Midsummer Pole (or Maypole, internationally speaking) is the quintessential Midsummer symbol in Sweden. At large community celebrations, it is usually erected at the center of a meadow as a group activity, after decorating it with birch leaves and flowers, leaving plenty of room around it. Because yes, like in Midsommar, dancing around the pole is an essential activity on this day. Similar to the movie, it is usually done in several circles with ever-changing modes and variations. But the modern dance around the Maypole is geared more towards the youngest, with childish songs such as “Små grodorna” (“The Little Frogs”) that include imitating frogs and such. Accompaniment by a small group of live musicians is a common sight, usually on traditional instruments such as violin and accordion. The goal of the current day Midsummer circle dance is not to determine a May Queen. It serves more as a socially acceptable opportunity to play like kids for a little while, hopefully not collapsing along the way. If drugs are involved, it’s more likely in the form of beer than psychedelics.
Death and sacrifice
More horrific than curious is the Hårga inclination towards blood sacrifice. In discussions about whether Dani or Christian is the worst person, many seem to completely miss that Pelle is, in fact, the real villain in Midsommar. Underneath a soft and sympathetic demeanor hides the person responsible for bringing new victims to the cult, ready to be sacrificed as part of the symbolic nine in the film’s final scenes. In Sweden, historical research into pre-Christian Midsummer traditions regularly revives the debate on whether there was once upon a time an element of blood sacrifice. So far, the evidence is thin. If it ever happened, it is even less likely humans were subjected. So this is one you can strike off your list of things to expect on a Midsummer’s Eve celebration in 2021.
Of course, the most memorable deaths in Midsommar are those near a high, rocky cliff known as the ättestupa. The literal meaning of the term is something like “clan precipice.” It was a place where supposedly the oldest members of society would jump off, or be pushed, to their death when they could no longer contribute to the group. So when the anthropologist Josh hears that Hårga might be into the ättestupa, he is fascinated and frightened – having heard of it only in academic research. It’s a realistic reaction that aligns with the current research consensus on the subject, which is that there is no credible confirmation of any ättestupa actually having been in use. But it’s something many Swedes had heard of long before the movie came out, often through high school history teachers that felt a need to spice up slightly boring lectures with some dubious but thrilling horror content.
When in Sweden
Midsommar has an abundance of overt and obscure references to Swedish folklore. You can take almost any ritual seen in the movie, do some research on it, and find out it has a counterpart in some existing, ancient tradition. As traditions are living things and only survive for as long as they are practiced, many have fallen into oblivion by now. But numerous customs survive to this day and still find their way to any modern celebration of Midsummer’s Eve in Sweden, some in a somewhat original form and others simplified.
If you are ever invited to Sweden to celebrate Midsummer, don’t be afraid. You are not likely to fall prey to a pagan death cult. But you will probably, hopefully, partake in some odd customs like jumping around like frogs or picking flowers backward. However, you will not be able to shed every last association to Ari Aster’s vision. Because in all likelihood, you are surrounded by people dressed in white linen or cotton, the occasional folk costume, everyone with a floral wreath on their head. The Maypole is up, and the day is long. Let the festivities begin.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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