10 Opening Movie Scenes That Wanted To Make You Uncomfortable

If you were worried that Ari Aster's second feature would struggle to match his stunning directorial debut Hereditary, he proved in Midsommar's traumatic opening sequence that this wouldn't be the case.

The film opens with our protagonist, Dani (Florence Pugh), leaving a voicemail for her parents that she received a concerning e-mail from her mentally ill sister, Terri (Klaudia Csányi).

A distraught Dani then calls her boyfriend Christian (Jack Raynor) for support, though he brushes off her worries and insists that her sister is surely fine.

But that's sadly not the case - she calls him back moments later screaming in grief, as it's revealed that Terri has not only committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, but has also taken their parents with her.

And Aster certainly makes us share Dani's trauma: the visual of firefighters breaking into Dani's parents' home, and especially the sight of Terri's lifeless face with a tube duct-taped to her mouth, is one that few watching will ever forget.

This is without getting into Dani's anguished wails after learning the news, which much like Toni Collette's grief-stricken breakdown in Hereditary, are so ugly and unpleasant as to feel brutally real. This isn't "Hollywood crying."

It certainly set a tone of pervading dread for the two-plus hours to come.