Not impressed with Ari Aster

Rating: 1/10 (8 April 2020)

NOTE - Obviously everything below is only my opinion. Anything involving creativity (e.g. music, movies, art, etc) is always subjective.
WARNING - Spoilers ahead!!!
I wanted to give this movie 3 stars because the cinematography was really good, but the story and execution was so bad I had to give it 1 star. Any good director can do cool shots. It's knowing WHEN to do them.
There are multiple factors that play into my 1-star review, and coincidentally they are the same factors that can be found in his previous movie "Hereditary" (which I like more than this movie, but still thought It was poorly done).
One factor is bad marketing. They made this out to be a horror movie. Which I didn't think it was AT ALL. I have no idea what movie genre to put this under. Maybe Drama/Folklore/Religious with some Gore tossed in there. (The gore was awesome)
It also felt like a Wicker Man (Nicholas Cage one) rip-off. Wicker Man pissed me off, but I still loved it. "Midsomnar" pissed me off, and I hate it.
Another factor was the beginning. Beginnings of movies are so important for me. They set the tone of the rest of the movie and help seal the rest of the movie.
The death scene of the girls family was AMAZING, but COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY!!! I don't understand why it had to be so over-the-top. Is it because the Director/Writer wanted this already messed up girl with a messed up sister to be even more messed up by having her entire family die? Thus, giving her the reason to fit into this new "family"? I'm fine that her family died, but that death scene was so intense, it made me think that HOW her family died was going to tie into the rest of the movie. Which it doesn't. The family should have just died in a car accident and call it a day. Maybe Ari didn't want to do that because he already used a family-car-accident-death scene in "Hereditary".
I can go into everything wrong with this movie, but I'm going to say just on more thing: Who in their right mind decides to go to Sweden and take shrooms right after your family dies by carbon monoxide poisoning where your sister taped a hose to her mouth and taped hoses into their parents bedroom?!?!?!?
They should just call this movie "White people". Because they are crazy. (This is coming from a middle-aged white guy. So I know these things)