A slight retread of previous terrain, Midsommar is another twisted meditation on grief and loss that is just as tautly executed. Trading in darkness for sunlight and the deteriorating family dynamic for an imploding relationship, Aster frames his latest haunt around the meat of another compelling drama. However, instead of focusing on how grief and loss can destroy or transform you, Midsommar finds the budding auteur slightly shifting gears, exploring the liberation from those dreadful feelings. Both films deal with heavy subject matter and evoke an immense feeling of dread; however, Midsommar comes with an added surprise: it’s funny as hell.

If you’ve seen last year’s Hereditary (which chances are you have, due to all its buzz), “funny” isn’t exactly a word that comes to mind. Hearing that the disturbed mind that brought us the mercilessly tense Hereditary may come as a bit of a shock, but Midsommar’s humor couldn’t feel more at home. It feels natural and refreshing, almost unintentional (though with Aster, you know everything is very intentional), and like the northern Swedish villagers of Hårga, the commune where the midsummer festivities take place, the humor is less about letting you breathe from tension and more about disarming your defenses so you relax into the horrors.

Like Hereditary, the catalyst to Midsommar’s events is a bizarrely horrific tragedy that occurs within the film’s first act and propels the narrative on its gloomy descent. The misfortune that befalls Dani is ominously resonate and creates images that aren’t easy to forget. The catastrophic event that leaves Dani without a family causes Christian, Dani’s mentally absent and wholly selfish boyfriend, to stay with her despite their obvious falling out, which is very explicitly depicted in the film’s opening/prologue. The relationship angle allows Aster to dissect the couple’s codependency that further drives them apart, making it into somewhat of a cautionary tale on the perils of toxic reliance.