Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.
This movie contains 81 potentially triggering events.
You see a dog in the background a few times, but you never see it in distress, and it's never even hinted that the dog was harmed. The only dead animal you see is the bear at the end, but you don't see or hear it being killed, you just see its body.
All of the main characters’ immediate family are killed during the opening scene of the film. It is clear that this was unexpected and that the main character did not have a chance to say goodbye to them.
Y’all are really answering that there were no abusive parents despite a child being sacrificed by drowning and another child being purposefully inbred to make them disabled?
The film is about a cult, all of the members are at least psychologically abused, but they are brought up to accept it. For example, the main cult member character’s parents were burned when he was small, but now he thinks that the whole community is his beloved family so he didn’t really even need biological parents.
A man is pursued by a teenage girl, who attempts to cast a love spell on him, mixes menstrual blood in his drink, and puts some of her pubic hair in his food.
Clearly some people don’t understand what DV is/can be. It can be within families too. A daughter killing her parents can definitely be see as DV. And on top of that the way the boyfriend treats and gaslights his girlfriend without the film? Emotional abuse.
An elderly female minor character brutally executes herself in a public cult ritual. This scene happens of her own free will, which adds to the disturbing nature of the scene.
It's hard to explain without outright giving away the ending, but the gaslighting, love-bombing, drugging, and trauma ultimately culminate in Dani doing a villainous act at the climax and joining the antagonists as one of them. The script directions for the ending imply that she is 'happy,' but only in the sense she has lost her mind.
The main character’s boyfriend gaslights her, mostly at the start of the film, and throughout the movie there is more gaslighting when characters question things that are happening around them and are told everything is fine and normal.
DIRECTOR'S CUT: A child volunteers as sacrifice during a night time riverside ritual. Adults attach chains to the child's feet and give them a large rock to hold. Two adults then start to swing the child, as if building momentum to throw them into the water. A character screams for them to stop and they do. The child is shown returning to their mother, both seeming unconcerned.
Many characters willingly take drugs more than once, but there are no compulsions or addictive traits shown on screen. Much of the drug taking is done as part of ritualistic ceremonies.
A horse does not die. At one point, maybe two thirds or three quarters of the way through (I think after the May Queen scene), you can see people leading a parade of animals across the scene in the background, with the last one being a young colt/filly, but that’s all you see. Briefly, you can hear sounds of animals possibly in distress coming from one of the barns a few minutes later, but nothing comes of it. I think the final table spread had dead animals on it, but it wasn’t clear.
The very graphic scene with the bear starts at 2:15:00 until around 2:17:30, from then until around 2:21:00 we only see one of the characters wearing the skin/body of the bear which isn't as graphic but still has some grotesque aspects like blood and bits of flesh showing, then they're burned. Before and after that there are no animals shown or heard being killed/harmed. There is only a scene during the banquet right after the coronation of the queen of May where there's a close up of cooked meat that seems to be rotten on the table that is a bit gross looking
The cult uses various forms of what appear to be psychedelic substances, and several instances of drug use involve dubious-at-best levels of consent. A character also gets some powder blown in his face, which makes him paralyzed and unable to communicate but still conscious for the rest of the movie.
More ephebophilia, but a major plot point is that an adult man is heavily pressured to participate in a 'fertility ritual' with a 16-year-old girl who is still a virgin (it's noted it's legal in Sweden). He ultimately goes through with it in a graphic scene that could be considered a form of sexual assault due to his being drugged and coerced. The actress was an adult at the time of filming, but may still be uncomfortable due to the graphic content.
Not confirmed. But after a couple characters go missing, there is a direct transition to watching women cooking meat pies, where the movie appeared to make an implication of cannibalism.
If the character was alive while being buried, it is not shown. We only see the character's limb sticking out of the ground after being buried. It is brief.
This is an extremely gory movie. It's hard to pinpoint what specifically, but it includes an elderly couple jumping to their deaths and one having to be euthanized with a mallet, someone's skin being used as a mask ala Leatherface, and a depiction of blood eagle torture.
The Blood Eagle torture method, still debated as to whether or not it was ever used in history, is NOT a hanging. In this particular scene in this particular movie, the character is 'suspended' from the ceiling, not 'hanged'. 'Hanged' implies something different.
SPOILERS:
Three characters die of carbon monoxide poisoning at the start of the film. The deaths are not shown, but the aftermath is. There are also depictions of the one of the deceased as a jumpscare later in the film.
Probably not. There is a guide for a love spell with illustrations that show scissors next to a vagina and blood in the next illustration, a character follows the instructions off-screen. It seems like it was meant as pubic hair and menstrual blood, not bloodletting by cutting.
Not really, although one character is hit in the back of the head with a mallet and spasms a bit, so wrote this comment to mention it in case that is sensitive to someone
It is hard to pinpoint one particular moment, but you do know it when you see it. One part of the film that stands out as this is near the end, when several people are burned alive, some against their will.
At one point, also near the end, a character is forced to try eating a raw fish whole. She does not succeed and is laughed at. This could be considered torture.
There may also be an element of psychological torture throughout the entire film, but this is closer to gaslighting.
⚠️TW: blood, deceased bodies, suicide⚠️
please practice self care by not reading if you are not emotionally able to handle some details. <3
there are two elderly people, one being a woman, and the other a man, who "give up" their lives in a suicide, culturally viewed as peaceful. they have their last meal and are then brought to the top of a cliff, proceeded to jump from it and plummet to their deaths. the woman dies when she hits the ground, but the man doesn't automatically die. because of this, they smash his head with a hammer to finish him off. it is very gory, including the graphic noises and screaming, blood, and body parts being demolished.
The characters go to a place where children are raised by the community instead of the parents. This is treated as normal there but may be triggering for some watching the film
Dani's younger sister is implied to be a teenager, and she commits suicide. her body is shown onscreen several times, not sure if she's considered a kid but she is a minor
A 15/16 year old, which is over the age of consent in the area the movie takes place in, so technically no. However, she’s a minor by American standards, so it may still squick out a viewer.
There is a scene where two elderly folks ritualistically jump off a cliff, with one not dying on impact and needing to be euthanized with a mallet. The context is that, past a certain age, traditionally villagers opt to die for religious reasons. There's a later scene with two villagers volunteering to be ritualistically sacrificed via immolation as part of their culture's traditions, but later shots imply they regretted their decision before death.
The plot opens with the murder-suicide of Dani's sister and her parents. Early into the movie Dani receives a worrying email from her sister, who has been troubled for a long time. She tries contacting her back and asking their parents, but no success. It's revealed that her sister filled the house with car fumes, killing everyone outside. The aftermath is portrayed graphically, as we see the parents' bodies laying in bed and the sister with a hose attached to her mouth, with bloodshot eyes and vomit on her clothes. Shortly after, we see Dani's reaction as she has a panic attack at home. The grief Dani feels at the loss of her family is an overarching theme, as she's still recovering, which allows the cult to lovebomb her. Pele also mentions losing his parents in a fire, which is used as a way to get her to relate to him and thus allow herself to be further lovebombed.
There is severeal disparitions during the movie, but we don't know if there they are kidnapped before getting killed, but it's kind of implicit. By the end of the movie, one character is actually held in a shack and tortured (his badly injured and mutilated but he steel breathing).
A man, who has a girlfriend, is drugged and coerced into a sex ritual. It is obvious that he is not too sure what is happening. The character's girlfriend has an anxiety attack after discovering this.
DIRECTOR'S CUT: Near the start of the film, when Dani has just taken the mushroom tea, she runs into a building and looks in a mirror. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment she sees the calm face of her sister standing behind her. Later there is a split second where the protagonist thinks she sees the face of her mother in a crowd, but she is high, distressed and tired and it appears to just be her imagination.
While there are jumpscares, it is worth noting that there are no monsters in this film, and the jumpscares are not very severe.
Near the beginning of the movie, the main character has an anxiety attack during a drug trip and she runs into a dark room. While she is looking into the mirror, a brief image of her dead sister appears behind her, and she runs away. The face that appears in the mirror is not too scary, but it is sudden.
Next, after witnessing two of the elders commit suicide by jumping off of a cliff, the main character has a dream that is inter cut with images of the dead bodies, and also the face of her sister. The images flash on the screen for short amounts of time. It is worth noting that some images shown are quite graphic and gory. One of the faces is completely smashed in and hollow, but the sequence is short.
This may be considered a jumpscare. One character is confronted while trying to take pictures of the sacred text. He his hit over the head with a mallet, creating a sharp sound that contrasts the rest of the quiet scene. After this, there is a long, maybe 5-10 second shot of a man wearing someone else's skin over his face as a mask.
There are multiple times during the final scenes where the headdress of flowers has a gaping hole in place of a center, that throbs when it is on screen. This triggered me pretty badly.
Main character’s family member commits suicide during the beginning of the film. She is seen covered in vomit. Half way through, a man is shown throwing up after witnessing a couple jump off a cliff. It is not graphic. Later, a woman throws up after seeing a ritualistic sex scene. It is slightly graphic. All scenes are short.
There is a bit of audio gore, especially in the ritual suicide scene, but it's not much considering they literally violently jumped off a cliff. It seems to be muffled or played down a bit? Not too sure, but as someone sensitive to that kind of thing it wasn't as bad as other movies
There is a scene where a man pees on a tree, only to anger the villagers because it turns out to be the ancestral tree where their loved ones' ashes are spread. He is later killed offscreen, implicitly for this act.
The movie opens with a woman with bipolar disorder engaging in an act of murder-suicide, with her leaving a worrying message to her surviving sister beforehand. Dani, the sister, herself has a history of anxiety and dissociation and is still recovering from the loss of her family.
Although it may have not been targeting Autism, it does have a young person with some sort of handicap. The character is posed in a creepy light that may trigger people who have been made to feel like an outcast in the past.
Drug use, with varying levels of consent, happens throughout. The screen mildly distorts and sways while the characters are under the influence of drugs. There are also various hallucinations, such as Dani seeing grass grow out of her body, a bad trip where she hears a group laughing at her upon which she enters an outhouse only to see her sister in the mirror, Dani spotting her deceased parents in a crowd, her sister's corpse appearing in the trees in the background, plants moving and 'breathing', and Dani having a 'conversation' in Swedish despite not being fluent (it's actually gibberish). Additionally, Dani appears to dissociate in some scenes which is implied through the editing. The infamous Attestupa scene has muffled audio and slowed visuals, and an early scene depicts a time skip through Dani walking out of the room of her apartment and into the plane's bathroom. It's confirmed by the director that Dani tends to dissociate. Dani also has a nightmare sequence where she sees the others driving away without her, and when she opens her mouth to scream smoke comes out. This is followed by shots of the Attestupa, as well as her family's corpses at the cliffs where it took place. In short, this movie may be a trigger if you have a history of traumatic drug experiences and/or depersonalization/derealization.
There are several scenes in small spaces, including cars, and an airplane bathroom. None of these scenes are played out to be particularly claustrophobic as the main focus, but it may cause a very claustrophobic person to panic.
The film opens with a double murder suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning. And there are later two ritual suicides, one of which goes poorly and ends as a violently assisted suicide.
Character has several flashbacks and anxiety attacks over mentions of their deceased parents. Character also hallucinates their dead sister for a brief moment. Not sure if this counts, but be wary.
There are also scenes with hidden background imagery of faces. One of these faces is very graphic and frightening when/if you see it (this occurs when Dani is crowned May Queen and is carried by the cult to her throne. The image can be seen in the trees in the background of the shot).
There is an infant in the village (so born, not in the womb) and it’s cared for by the member. We never see or hear the baby coming to any harm, just that it cries a lot which can be normal for children. It is not confirmed that there is any abuse towards the baby
One character dismisses the suicide note of a young bipolar woman as 'attention seeking' and no big deal. They are very critical and lack empathy for this woman, making her suffering into calculated ploys for drama.
Anyone who can read Danish will see an anti-immigration sign. But it is not specifically targeting Jewish immigrants. There are also no prominent Jewish characters or actors.
There is a ritual “mating” scene, I'm not sure of the time stamp in which you can see multiple women of varying age in the nude. Most of which are not explicitly “sexual”, they just stand around the couple in the nude and sway.
One of the main characters, Christian, is shown pretty nude, but I don’t remember if you see any specific body parts.
A major plot point is one of the female villagers becoming of age, and Christian being pressured to 'mate' with her. It's made explicit that she is a virgin. This ultimately culminates in Christian participating in a graphically portrayed fertility ritual with her, with dubious-at-best levels of consent due to his being drugged and manipulated.
There is a lot of gore in this film. Do not watch it if you are afraid of blood.
The most noticeably gory scene has two characters falling off a cliff to their deaths. One dies on landing, and her face is caved in with blood and pieces of flesh in and around her head. The second doesn't die after falling, but his leg is broken and the bone is showing. Other characters use a mallet to smash his head. The scene is very drawn-out.
There is also a scene in which a man undergoes the prcoess of a blood eagle. He is suspended from the ceiling and his back is flayed open. His lungs, still breathing, have been removed through his back. His eyes were replaced with flowers.