A couple is teetering on the brink of breaking up when a family tragedy means, instead, he invites her to join him with some friends as he goes to Sweden for a festival in a remote community in the north. As the various rituals continue (including drugs and strange art and costumes and unending days as the sun refuses to sink below the horizon in a far-north summer), the couple and their friends are drawn further and further into the rituals, unaware what’s coming for them.
This is an odd follow-up to Ari Aster’s first film, “Hereditary” – in some ways it’s deliberately seeking to do something different (horror in the bright sunshine rather than the dark corners, with a young couple rather than a family in the centre). And it’s no surprise to research and find out that this is at least partially a reaction to Aster having a relationship breakup (it’s all the most nightmarish possibilities of a breakup you could possibly imagine). And it’s effective at gathering creepiness. But in the final analysis, the ending doesn’t land as strongly emotionally for me – it could be the slightly overlong running time meaning the payout is a bit too drawn out, it could be that we’re never quite as inside the head of Florence Pugh’s protagonist as we were with Toni Collette, it could be simply that we’re aware of the tricks and this time it’s not quite as much a gut punch as it is a “how interesting” kinda film. There is imagery and moments that are still wonderfully effective here – but inevitably, with such a strong first film to live up to, this ends up falling a little bit flatter. Still interesting, just … a little bit harder to take to the heart.
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