10 More Hardest To Watch Horror Movie Moments

Few films are so bold as to go full tilt in their opening scene, and yet that's precisely what Ari Aster does with Midsommar.

Midsommar sees a group of anthropology college students from the US journey to a remote Swedish village for a summer festival that only comes along once every couple of generations. Along for the ride is Dani (Florence Pugh), who is simply looking to get away from things after the sudden brutal death of her entire immediate family. Things turn sinister, the Swedes gets savage, and Dani is caught in the middle of it all.

As bad as any of the other maimings, mutilations and big hammer head bashings throughout the film, Midsommar's opening scene depicts Dani's suicidal and psychologically unstable sister killing herself and her parents, the results of which are played into the opening titles. The pipes connecting the running car in the garage to the parents' bedroom and Dani's sister's face are horrifying enough, but it is all cast in a ghostly blue palette that extends to the dead parents' skin and even the sister's eyes. Add to this the accompaniment of a tortured string section -- strings that segue into Dani's moans at having lost everything -- and the scene is all but unbearable.