Latest Updates - Florence Pugh

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Comment by zabadak:

Independent review

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

Not as good as I thought it was going to be, but better than I thought it was when I was watching it.

I think the reason I expected so much is because of the obvious comparisons it drew to the classic: The Wicker Man...

(Original - not the other nonsense with Nicolas Cage)

...And also, it our man Ari at the helm of an A24 film, which, after seeing the quite singular: Hereditary, made me expect great things.

...But that also turns out to to be the baggage this cannot quite live up to... This is slow, and a lot of the plot devices are contrived, so as to make the story move the way Ari wants it to, even though 99% of humanity, at multiple occasions in this story, would have acted to the contrary without thinking about it:

...Go to Swedish "commune" way out in the sticks?

Hell no!

...Upon arriving, seeing this lot prancing about in the field around buildings you are not allowed to go in:

Goodbye!

And everything therein and thereafter, at almost every point:

Not on your nelly chum!

It has a couple of disturbing concepts, and few (quite weak) gross horror effects, but I didn't really feel it was excessively graphic, in comparison to many other horror films - in fact, quite tame (I even laughed out loud at a particular scene involving a mallet - which was not the intended effect they wished to have on an audience!).

The group of friends traveling to this woodland based am-dram pantomime, in true horror style, are a bunch of boneheads: smart enough to go to university, but not smart enough to see where this is heading from the outset, apparently - so I didn't really care to what end any of them came.

And all the while, at the back of my head, watching this, was the overly large shadow of The Wicker Man, and the expectation created by Hereditary - it lived up to neither.

It is, only on reflection, the central, and to a great degree, subtextual story of Ms Pugh's grief, that is the story, and the only element of this story that really is it's own, but it sags under the weight of those comparisons.

So in the end...yeah, it's OK, even quite good, but not anything like the classic it promised to be, and I don't feel the need to see it again.