I saw Midsommar today, which I was really excited about. It's Ari Aster's second film, after last year's Hereditary - and yeah, you can tell it's made by the same person. There are very similar themes and ideas in this film, but it is also trying to do something different, or at least trying things out in a slightly different genre. So, here's thing: Hereditary had SO much build up and hype that when I saw it I was a little let down. It wasn't scary at all to me. Nor did it give me the overwhelming sense of dread that so many said it did to them. It just felt lacking a little. Having watched it again though, I appreciated it more and would say I really enjoy it. I just think the hype was overblown. What's weird to me is that Midsommar doesn't have nearly the same amount of hype leading up to it, and yet I found it so much more effective than Hereditary. It's so much more fucked up and disturbing. And that feeling of dread is there throughout the entire thing.
At this point, I can't confidently say whether or not I loved it or anything. I gotta sit with it a while. But quickly after it was done, it put me in this strange mood the rest of the night, which is something I was expecting Hereditary to do. This one fucked me up a bit. The gore is far more disturbing and disgusting. And the climax, and build up to it, is much better. Basically, all the things people claimed Hereditary did to them, Midsommar did to me. It will still certainly have people who hate it, but I think it's a pretty creative twist around a horror sub-genre. Is it the most original thing ever? No. Neither was Hereditary. But it's the way Ari Aster builds the film and makes it his own that makes it work so well. It's not scary really, but I found several scenes profoundly unsettling.
And at this point, I am just kind of shocked that it doesn't have that word-of-mouth buzz that Hereditary had cause it's doing largely the same things but to a much more heightened degree.
Edit: oh, also Florence Pugh is excellent in it.
