Middling Midsommar

Rating: 5/10 (28 September 2019)

As a fan of the director's previous feature film, Hereditary, I perhaps expected too much. Basically, the film is too long, too pretentious and too predictable. Before I saw the film I guessed the visiting students would be used by the commune either as human sacrifices or for reproduction, to add to the commune's gene pool. In fact, both of these things happen, with the boyfriend of the main character - in what amounts to a rape scene - being drugged into sex, and everyone else except the main character being killed and burnt in a ceremonial sacrifice.
But the film takes too long to get there. I found my attention wandering quite a few times. What's great about Ari Aster is that he knows horror films made today need to concentrate on atmosphere, and creating striking, disturbing visuals that stay with you. All horror tropes have been done to death by now, so you have to go this way, though it's something plenty of directors don't seem to know. I'm all for slowing things down and not turning a movie into a trashy slasher film, but there's a limit. The foreboding atmosphere in Midsommar isn't strong enough, and the disturbing visuals get lost amid so much padding.
Midsommar isn't a bad film - I get the feeling Aster doesn't have a bad film in him - but it's not overly special. It's just middling.