A convenient way to see a bunch of cliches

Rating: 3/10 (14 October 2019)

The cinema was nice but that was it. I'll try to phrase it nicely below but this movie was an absolute bore and a checklist of tropes and cliches
I remember when I saw the very first preview, the day it came out andd I said "that looks like teen based Wicker Man"
Sitting at a lengthy 2.5 hours I was hoping for quite a deep dive of cult horror.
The cinematography was wonderful, great pans of landscapes and scenery. The location of filming was gorgeous and the frame work was excellent. All of it well directed as seems to be Ari Aster's forte
The lore is strangely shallow for it's length. What they had was interesting and convincing for the cult. The convictions and ideals were fun to hear about but ultimately could have been fleshed out more.
The acting was acceptable even tho all of the characters were unlikable and tremendously oblivious to any danger. Character creation seems to be a weakness for Ari. I do hope to see more of the female lead, Florence Pugh, in more roles in the future. She did great in her part but was restricted by the character.
Overall, this was everything I expected it to be to a T. It's not that it was a bad movie it was just the exact formula that you would expect from the preview. And as I thought, it was essentially teen based Wicker Man. I feel like I've seen this movie before and nothing super new was brought to the table.
It also could have been very easily 30-40 minutes shorter.
I did enjoy it far more than Hereditary. I can see why people got excited about it and I hope Ari keeps pushing out big hitters to help the genre out. Both his movies brought a ton of attention to the horror world and that's great! but I think I'll pass on his future movies.