The following contains descriptions of graphic violence.

Every director has their signature. Quentin Tarantino's films are known for their non-linear storylines, liberal use of violence, and dark humor. Joe Dante is known for his use of 1950s settings and cartoon-style violence. For Darren Aronofsky, it's the dark drama and the experimental filming techniques. And for relative newcomer Ari Aster, it's the religious cults and the horror of interpersonal drama.

Aster is mostly known for his feature films, Hereditary and Midsommar. Hereditary revolves around the Graham family as they learn about their disturbing ancestry while experiencing one tragedy after another. Midsommar follows Dani Ardor as she goes on a trip to a Swedish midsummer festival with her emotionally unavailable boyfriend, Christian, and his friends, only to find themselves entangled in a dangerous pagan cult. Both movies are marked by the dark side of interpersonal drama; Hereditary is about the disintegration of a family, and Midsommar is about the collapse of a romantic relationship. Another pattern in Aster's films is the excruciating death of the most level-headed character in the picture.

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Hereditary's Steve Remains Level-Headed Until the End

In Hereditary, the Graham family consists of Annie, Steve, and their two children, Peter and Charlie. Annie has a strained relationship with her children due to her history of sleepwalking, and she once had an episode where she nearly lit them and herself on fire. Steve is the glue that holds the family together. He's a psychiatrist who is very level-headed and has a good relationship with his wife and children. He remains a pillar of strength even after tragedy strikes. After Charlie, who has a severe nut allergy, eats cake containing nuts and goes into anaphylactic shock, Peter drives her to the hospital. Sadly, Charlie is accidentally killed when Peter swerves to avoid hitting a deer. Peter is wracked with guilt, and Annie is beyond devastated and blames him for what happened. Despite all this, Steve still manages to stand strong for his family.

He's also very good at establishing boundaries. For example, when Annie goes on a tirade about Charlie's death and how it's Peter's fault, Steve shuts her down. He also tells Annie that if she doesn't stop with the séance she chose to perform in order to commune with the deceased Charlie, then he will have to call the police to protect Peter. Unfortunately, despite being the constant voice of reason, Steve ends up getting immolated toward the end of Hereditary, which is one of the worst deaths imaginable. He did his best to keep his family afloat only to meet a terrible end.

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Midsommar's Simon and Connie Represent How the Audience Would React

In Midsommar, Dani, Christian, Mark, and Josh meet an English couple, Simon and Connie. Simon and Connie are minor characters, but they represent the voices of reason in Midsommar. When Simon spots a bear in a cage, he immediately asks one of the cult members why they have a bear, as any reasonable person would. When the cult performs an ättestupa in which two elderly people jump off a cliff to their deaths, Simon and Connie are horrified, as they should be. Simon furiously calls out the cult members for what they just allowed to happen, and he demands that they stay away from his equally traumatized girlfriend. Unlike Connie and Simon, Christian is merely put off by the ritual but chooses to "keep an open mind" about it; Josh is completely calm about the entire thing; and Mark, who took a nap during the ritual, asks the others why they let him sleep through it. Being calm after witnessing two people jump to their deaths is quite unreasonable.

After the ättestupa, Simon and Connie pack their bags and attempt to leave, which is, again, the most logical thing to do after witnessing such a horrifying ritual. By contrast, Christian and Josh have every intention of staying despite what they witnessed because they are anthropology students who want to continue to study the cult's way of life. What they fail to realize, as Dani points out, is that the cult is not going to let them leave alive after witnessing the ättestupa. Even though they don't act reasonably, Christian and Josh both outlive Simon and Connie. As he attempts to leave, Simon is captured and turned into a blood eagle. The blood eagle is a Scandinavian method of execution in which the victim is suspended in the air, and their lungs are pulled up through their ribs to resemble wings. While not nearly as prolonged as being turned into a blood eagle, Connie's fate is also terrible as she is drowned off-screen. The brutal deaths of the two most sensible people in Midsommar are a continuation of Aster's pattern.

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There Is No Place for Level-Headed People in Ari Aster's Films

Gabriel Byrne as Steve Graham from Hereditary

So why does Ari Aster always brutally kill the voice of reason in his films? One of the many things that Hereditary and Midsommar have in common is that they both involve cults, and cults and reason do not go together. In Hereditary, the Graham family gets enveloped in a cult that worships the demon Paimon, who needs to inhabit the body of a male host. Steve doesn't buy into the occult stuff and tries to hold Annie back from getting involved. If he had been kept alive, Hereditary would not have ended with Annie decapitating herself and Peter becoming the human host for Paimon; Steve would have stopped it. Steve serves as an obstacle for Paimon, which leads Paimon to see him as an enemy. Thus, Paimon had Steve suffer a painful death.

Midsommar involves a group of tourists that get entangled in a Swedish pagan cult that plans to have one of them as their May Queen while sacrificing the rest. The May Queen must be a woman, so chances are that Simon would have been killed anyway. Simon acting as the voice of reason, however, may have led the cult to subject him to a death as painful as the blood eagle. He is not shy about berating the cult after they performed the ättestupa, and he makes it clear that he and Connie are leaving because of it. If Simon and Connie had made it back to town, they most likely would have informed the police, who would have put a stop to the cult's activities. Simon and Connie represent obstacles in the cult's way of life, which motivates the cult to kill them in horrible ways.

In Aster's worlds, lack of reason is the status quo. The voice of reason is not only unwelcome in the worlds that Aster builds but also loathed and seen as a direct threat, which is why he or she always dies a painful death. Will Aster continue with this trend in his future films? His upcoming film, Beau Is Afraid, is a surrealist flick about a man who embarks on a mind-bending journey home after his estranged mother dies. There do not seem to be any cults involved based on the trailer, but the film's world appears to be reigned by a lack of reason and rationality. That being said, Aster could still brutally kill off the voice of reason in Beau Is Afraid as he did in Hereditary and Midsommar.