Midsommar currently beats The Witch 56–44

The Verdict Neck and Neck

Aster locates something inside the folk tradition that Eggers’ archaeological approach doesn’t reach: the emotional logic of surrender. Pugh’s performance finds the precise register where grief becomes openness and openness becomes vulnerability, and the community that responds to that vulnerability is both genuine and terrifying. Eggers’ Witch is more rigorous — the period language, the historical sourcing, the formal control — but rigour is a distant virtue next to that kind of emotional immediacy. When Midsommar leads, it’s because the folk horror that makes you feel understood is more powerful than the folk horror that makes you feel watched.