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| Topic | Board 8 Ranks 2010s Horror Movies - The Final Chapter - *THE RANKINGS* |
| Snake5555555555 05/27/22 9:38:20 PM #238: | So much of the movie is spelled out for you, either by just doing whats expected or by literally showing you whats going to happen on one of the many drawing these people make. They never stop drawing, apparently and they were nice enough to draw out all the major plot points of the film. Hey lets check out this huge canvas detailing how to put your pubes in food and bewitch a man and then we see that exact same thing happen thirty minutes later. It is pretty obvious what is happening here from the start, which is why it is weird we have multiple characters killed offscreen in a horror movie. We know whats going on, so you arent tricking us. Even when we do see bad things happen, I dont always think it follows up as much as it should. One of the creepiest parts of the movie is where the asshole friend has something done to him where his face looks all weird and it looks like maybe hes screaming for help but stuck in his own body or something. I wanted follow up on that. I wanted more on what was going on or what suffering he was going through or something, but then by the end of the movie hes just dead and killed offscreen at some later time. Even with a lot of the movie spelled out, it still does a lot of the things it sets out to do and I guess I wasnt quite sure what was going to happen to Florence Pugh. Like, she could theoretically join the cult, escape the cult, or get sacrificed by the cult. But based on what was happening and the sort of growth she was experiencing, it felt pretty clear she would wind up joining the cult and thats what winds up happening. Also, I guess I was disappointed how straight forward of a cult movie this was. Right away I got Wicker Man vibes and but I thought maybe something else was going on. My theory was not so much that these people were being sacrificed, but just that they were breaking these unforgivable rules of their community and thats why they were being killed. The kid from Were the Millers pees on the ancestral tree and the guy doing his thesis takes pictures of the book and the other couple who no one cares about screams and interrupts the ceremony of the two old people jumping off a cliff, and each one of them only dies after interrupting or disturbing something that was important to them culturally or spiritually. So it wasnt so much that this was another boring sacrificial lamb story line, but just that this was a community that took the community so seriously it was willing to murder to protect it. And I thought that was more interesting, at least to me. But then we get to the end and Florence Pugh is wearing all of the flowers that were ever grown in this valley, all at once, and the leader guy spouts off about the sacrifice they need to make and I was just like oh. Like it was that obvious. It was Wicker Man, basically. It didnt have to be what I spelled out above, but I just kind of wish there was something else to this. Something not so predictable and obvious, particularly coming from the guy who also did Hereditary. Then there are things here that seem to be weird just for the sake of being weird, or that dont feel fully fleshed out and developed. Like the oracle character? Were they just put in because they looked weird and the director thought it would be a good visual creep out? Theyre introduced so we can get the zoom in on their face and then they disappear and then theyre coloring at the end and thats basically it. To a certain extent, weird for the sake of weird in a movie like this kind of makes sense so Im not going to harp on it too much, but I also feel like some of this couldve been pretty easily cut. And then, even with as long as this movie is, I didnt think we got the depth of characterization we shouldve here. Florence Pugh is really good and the asshole selfish boyfriend feels quite realistic for a selfish asshole boyfriend, but a lot of the cast beyond that feels sort of one note. The one asshole friend seems to be in this movie to do asshole stuff and walk around confused. The guy writing his thesis asks about his thesis a lot. Weird Swedes do weird Swede stuff. The other couple is just there, barely. Im not sure I got a great sense of their character other than this very superficial stuff. Midsommar also joins a couple of other films on this list that seems to sacrifice story because they are hyper focused on the message or allegory of the film. No one tried to run? Outside of the couple? No one in the main friend group tried to get the hell out of there? Literally all of them hear the girl from the couple scream and then she disappears and when the weird Swedish people are like oh she uh said she was sorry for the misunderstanding and left no one blinks an eye or goes RUN FROM THE CRAZY SWEDES RUN RUN RUN? And I fully understand the symbolism of what is happening to Florence Pugh at the end and why the movie choses the boyfriend to die based on what the underlying themes here are, but maybe it isnt fair for him to get burned alive for cheating on you when he was hypnotized by sauteed pubes. It gets strange to the point that you kind of have to stop questioning it sometimes if you want to actually enjoy the film, which I dont necessarily mind doing some times. I was still mostly into the story, even with this going on, so it wasnt as if things were ruined for me entirely. I feel like Ive been complaining non-stop and theres a couple of pages of me whining up above. But at the same time I think this is almost legitimately great. Theres something really good about the way this was filmed and Ari Aster does such an amazing job filming every single scene in his films that it becomes impossible to look away from. I think this was the longest movie on the list, but it doesnt feel like it at all. Two and a half hours flew by and even though I found it predictable and even if it feels like it does too much with some things and too little with others and even though the ending was not exactly what I was hoping for, I was thoroughly engrossed. I couldnt look away. I didnt want it to end, honestly. I have all these complaints but I absolutely couldve watched another two and a half hours of this story and been 100% on board. There are so many incredible scenes here that I need to discuss that I am absolutely forcing my wife to watch this right now because I want to see what she thinks. Theres that scene where Florence Pugh sees her boyfriend cheating on her and she is wailing and screaming and all the other women start doing the exact same thing, and I had legitimate chills. It is one of those things I cant fully explain, but I dont mean it as an exaggeration that it gave me the chills watching that synchronized wailing intermixed with the old women chanting. You see her finding that community that shes been missing out on this entire film, and this is the point where you know she is truly lost to the cult with no hope of coming back. It is just so stark and raw from a visual standpoint and from a performance standpoint. Theres a lot of scenes like that in the movie and even with the stuff I didnt like, I never stopped being interested. --- I've decided to put my fears behind me. I'm not going back. https://www.instagram.com/horror_obscurities/ ... Copied to Clipboard! |
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