An unnecessary long and boring remake of The Wicker Man and The Wicker Tree

Rating: 1/10 (4 July 2019)

The original Wicker Man (1973, with Christopher Lee) was not a terrifying movie until the very end but the suspense kept everybody guessing. The movie become a cult sensation (at least some of the final cuts of the film) not as an horror movie but as a metaphoric view of religion and society; there was some legends that the movie was based on real facts about Pagan cults, north of UK. The Wicker Tree has the same original director and a very similar story but instead of a Christian Police we have an Evangelical couple on a difficult relationship.
Midsommar takes basically the couple in crisis and a couple other characters, moves them to Sweden instead of UK.
After a family tragedy; a girl joins her former boyfriend and some other friends, a group of grad students working on a thesis, on a visit to a Sweden community to appreciate the summer solstice celebration.
They meet there white dressed community; quite inclined to drugs and rituals (and strange music).
Ari Asher already showed he prefer style over substance (and story) on Hereditary (a movie that copy a lot from Rosemary baby's and other horror classics) but at least that movie was shorter.
It seems he loves to film but hates editing; basically in love with his own scenes. Here, the continuous display of white dressed people dancing, playing instrumental music and doing strange rituals (in eternal daylight) becomes tediously repetitive without adding anything to the promised intrigue. Characters reactions became so absurd that even the movie laughs about some events. Clocking over 140 minutes the movie will be too slow even cutting an hour off. It is incredible that with such unnecessary length the resolution is rushed and confusing.
There are couple of violent deaths shown, and a few others not. Everything quite predictable and not very engaging; because the director keeps distance with the main characters avoiding any empathy. In fact it is never clear if anyone is worth saving; specially Puig characters who is borderline obsessive and perhaps psychotic.
In brief; there is no horror, the movie is tedious and far from entertaining. Critics praised it because its pictoric values, but people run out of the cinema after a while or start snoring. Skip this one and go to see something worth like THE FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE