Ari Aster's Midsommar and Hereditary utilize various foods in order to capture a specific mood and foreshadow important events. Whether its a chocolate bar without nuts or a fish, food plays an even bigger role in these horror flicks than one may have previously assumed. Here's why these choices are so important to Midsommar and Hereditary.
While Ari Aster may be relatively new to the horror genre compared to other directors, he has already made a substantial impact. The director's feature-length debut was strong, and boasted a cast of highly skilled actors such as Toni Collette (Little Miss Sunshine, Knives Out) and Gabriel Byrne (Stigmata). Hereditary ushered him into a world where he became one of the top directors in the genre to watch. His follow-up folk horror movie Midsommar was even more successful and went on to inspire Halloween costumes, birthday parties, and other creators in the genre who sought to capture an equally as nuanced story. In the 2010s, the folk horror sub-genre grew in popularity with Robert Eggers's The Witch, leading to even more releases in 2020 like Joko Anwar's Impetigore. Its rise can be largely attributed to the incredible storyline and attention to detail featured in Aster's movie.
The two movies tell entirely different stories, but they both emphasize food as a major component as well as a plot device. In Midsommar, Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh) ingests hallucinogenic teas and is offered a full fish to swallow, while her boyfriend Christian (Josh Radnor) eats a pie with a pubic hair in it and drinks juice spiked with menstrual blood. Hereditary's Charlie (Milly Shapiro) enjoys chocolate, but she's allergic to nuts, which ultimately become her downfall. Food is a proven method that Aster uses to foreshadow events and strengthen his characters' storylines — it's not just a random inclusion, and it could be argued that very little in Aster's horror movies is actually random at all.
At its core, Hereditary is about a dysfunctional family with the added struggles of a demonic cult that worships Paimon from The Lesser Key Of Solomon. Their daughter Charlie's affinity to chocolate somewhat leads to her downfall. She's allergic to nuts; without this allergy, the movie wouldn't have progressed to the point that it did, which makes the food item critical. Peter (Alex Wolff) and his mom Annie (Collette) get into a heated argument at dinner, which traditionally symbolizes families coming together, but, in this case, they are torn even further apart. By placing them in these situations, Aster makes food a key contributor to the horrors that ensue in Hereditary as well as how they play out.
The director uses consumption even more in Midsommar, as Dani and her group of friends dine regularly with the Swedish Hårga cult and consume hallucinogens throughout its entirety. He uses food and drink to draw a divide between reality. Furthermore, Christian bites into a pie with a pubic hair in it and is served juice with menstrual blood. As it turns out, a cult member desires to bear his child and uses these offerings to let him know her interest — it's also a shocking moment for the audience by compromising something as essential to life as food and drink. Maja (Isabelle Grill) actually uses menstrual blood magic, which is theorized to make a man fall in love. In this instance, Aster strengthens Maja's characterization as well as the Hårga's, as they now have clear ties to practices of witchcraft.
Without chocolate in Hereditary, the events of the movie wouldn't have been as fluid. Charlie wouldn't have had an allergic reaction at the party, which led to her decapitation. The family dinner operates as a method of dividing the Graham family, while Midsommar's hallucinogens separate the characters from their reality. Ari Aster is intentional with even the most minute details, including food and acts of consumption and communal dining. All of this serves to anchor the storylines of Hereditary and Midsommar in incredibly creative and unsettling ways.