Any interest in pagan folklore - avoid

Rating: 1/10 (28 December 2019)

I've been looking forward to this for months and I don't think I've ever been so disappointed
Visually it's beautiful with incredible artistry in props and set design but that's about the extent of it's merits.
Folklore and paganism/ practices are a huge passion so when runes started cropping up I thought there was going to be a fabulous film.
But oh my... what starts off as a direct rip off of The Wickerman (sadly with elements stolen even from the diabolical remake) just progresses through a series of clichÃ©s.
Oh. Aren't they clever, it's daylight, how shocking.
Oh, they're a pagan cult, there *must* be human sacrife.
Oh, the European in America is taking American friends to his village? They *must* be doomed.
Oh, the blonde American woman is in mortal peril but yay, she survives!
Yawn.
The gore was there for gore's sake to boost the age rating.
The obligatory semi orgy scene (because all pagan cults have orgies!) appeared.
The main characters were vile people, utterly no sympathy for their inevitable deaths.
The score was painful.
The whole shock reveal that everyone over 72 leaps to their own deaths fell apart in the last scenes when extras were obviously over that age...
And the drugs... boring!
Just an utter waste of 3 hours.
Groundbreaking and new? No. American rip off of cult classic with total lack of class or subtitles? Yes.
Such a shame, the premise had such potential.
Instead it just felt like a ''Swedish'' Amish type set up full of stereotypes and cliches.
Utterly unoriginal and predictable.
And the final scene and people burn alive (in a wooden hut rather than a wooden man) the facepalm moment when the lead looks up and smiles? Dude, you just put the cherry on the cake.
Stick to the Wickerman. It's got the cult status for a reason. That's why they just made yet another rip off.