Joel Ruprecht

I'm not a big fan of scary movies, but I saw Midsommar show up on a couple lists of good movies, so I thought I'd check it out. Definitely an interesting journey, and the movie is quite visually, musically, and pseudo-anthropologically appealing... ...but It lacks any real substance. The whole movie felt very much like a bad shrooms trip, which makes sense, because the characters are taking shrooms (and general psychedelics) throughout the whole movie. More specifically, there isn't much of an arc in relation to the story or the characters--who, sadly, remain relatively static throughout the whole film. Everything the antagonists do is driven by the vague impetus of "tradition," which isn't the best kindling for deep plot development and just makes for continuous subjection to the increasingly bizarre. If you want to be shocked by a constant juxtaposition between the pleasant visuals/music and horrifying scenes that do grotesque things to the human body (though, what really makes it weird is how nonchalantly the commune-dwellers treat all the incredibly strange things they do), then go for it, but there are just so many better movies you could be watching.