The Saltburn Drainpipe’s review published on Letterboxd:
I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve tried to watch this movie before and couldn’t get through it. Not because I was too scared, but because I was too… disgusted.
Now that I’ve managed I think that’s exactly what Aster was going for.
Midsommar carries what made hereditary so good forward. This isn’t a movie with loads of jump scares and loud noises. There is gore but it feels earned. Things aren’t really going bump in the night. In fact Midsommar is a daytime horror. What makes this movie work is how real everything feels. This feels like something that could really happen to you or just about anyone and it’s really horrible.
You can tell that Ari Aster really looked into how cults work and who cults target here. You have a grief stricken, unstable, insecure main character played sublimely by a younger Florence Pugh, and watching her get gradually ensnared by the Harga commune is the best part of this film. If you have any interest in cults you know this is the exact kind of person they target and is exactly how they work. Any thing off putting or particularly crazy is presented as just a ‘cultural difference’ or ‘just the way we do things here, you’ll understand one day’. Naysayers are gradually pushed out while people who seem to have a slight interest are specifically targeted. Midsommar handles this fantastically.
The acting is great across the board, but Florence really does stand out. I know this film put her on the map years ago and I wish I’d been able to enjoy it more back then. What a way to burst onto the scene!
So what made me disgusted by it? The same thing that makes me realise it’s a good piece of work. It’s so realistic in its horror. These people terrify me because people who think and act like them exist all over the world. I can deal with demons and that sort of thing because I don’t really believe in it. This film is more like a universal ‘get out’ where you can’t logically shut it away as something that would never happen. That’s what makes it good, and it’s also why I doubt I’ll ever want to watch it again.
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