Midsommar

If there was one thing last year’s occult shocker "Hereditary" taught us about its deviously gifted writer-director, Ari Aster, it’s not to trust him in the slightest. Think Midsommar, his much-hyped follow-up, looks like Aster’s answer to The Wicker Man? Well, it is, kind of – but that’s not to say you’ll come anywhere near predicting its singular, warped response.

The spell that it casts is bright, dreamy and absorbing, but it is also in no particular hurry to come into focus, which makes its aftereffects all the harder to shake.

Ari Aster continues on as filmmaking’s ringleader of grief in Midsommar, an unsettling, often shocking portrayal of cultic life that’s rich with both ambition and beauty.

Midsommar is a waking nightmare and I mean that in the best possible way.

Aster’s bold flourishes occasionally fall flat, but Florence Pugh holds the film together — especially when its plotting stumbles or its shocks grow predictable.

The most ambitious horror blurs the line between the psychological and the mythic, between ordinary human emotions and symbol-laden Blakean nightmares, and Aster is very ambitious and very blurry.

It’s built on such a void of insight and experience, such a void of character and relationships, that even the first level of the house of narrative cards can’t stand.

The movie's rating is significantly deflated by the fact that it advertises itself as a horror movie, but it just isn't. It attracts horror fans, but the correct target audience are people who like thought-provoking movies and aren't immediately turned off by atrocity and moral ambiguity. If that's the target audience that the movie tried to appeal towards, it would have a much higher rating. But judging the movie for what it is, it's one the most immersive and thought-provoking movies I've seen in a long time. It really made me think very deeply about the topics of excessive individualism in the West; the idea that death is a lot less scary in the presence of a community or transcendent order that one sees as an extension of oneself, and which outlives oneself; the sense of profound meaning and belonging that can arise from a rich shared culture; but at the same time the absolute atrocities at the individual level that can be overlooked or even embraced with an excessive focus on community; the lack of ultimate purpose and unique contribution when every generation is an exact copy of the last; and the absolute hellscape and moral bankruptcy that can ensue from getting too comfortable with the ideas of death and suffering. I cannot understate how much the movie made me think about these topics. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this movie influenced my worldview. Not directly - as it doesn't intend to give all the answers - but it certainly intends to ask questions, which it does with incredible efficiency, in my opinion. In addition to its thought-provoking nature, it also uses horror, ambiguity, and the striking unfamiliarity of the cult to the protagonists to create a sense of mystery, which makes the movie very immersive, in my opinion. All in all, I genuinely think it's pretty close to a masterpiece. It's certainly not going to be too everyone's taste, and it has its fair share of repulsive scenes, but those whom the movie is for are going to get a LOT out of the movie, I think.

It's not bad. It's filmed kinda ike a documentary, emotions and ideas are suggested here and there without pushing.. Technically it's good. The casting too. That being said, it's not very entertaining, especially since The Wicker Man thematics have been used quite a lot in horror movies and shows. Closed communities even more.. So nothing really new to the table,safe a certain style

Very good baroque aesthetic for a modern horror movie. Although it is overshadowed by its almost hidden occultism it is a good horror movie. Much superior to its predecessor.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Starts of quite ok until the film goes to Sweden. After that it turns unengaging and stupid just like the actions of the characters in it. Pugh is cute though...