That, to me, is the mark of a great film.
Since the trades are gonna do it, let's do it too - If I had to pick one horror actress to be nominated or win this year, between this and Lupita ("Us"), I'm picking Lupita. She's playing two people, ya'll.
Florence is great, and goes through various stages of grief. But TWO PEOPLE.
Anyway.
It wasn't lost on me that the white dudes had to be horrendous people to be killed, but the ambiguously brown people and the black dude (Who fucked up. He did!) got killed under the guise of "Hey, a ritual!"
This is my first Ari Aster film (Though I did read the synopsis for "Hereditary") - the cultish aspect is far less random here.
The music and some of the early cinematography reminded me strongly of a sci-fi film instead of summer-horror.
Let's also talk about how cultural expectations play with sympathizing with the characters, specifically Christian. Sometime he's right, most of the time he's wrong, and everyone knows it, and for some reason people have tolerated him for this long.
When he's drugged and having sex with Maja in the barn, at points I wondered if he was still drugged. Even though he wanted to break up with Dani earlier, I do think at a point the drugging wore off.
In the end, though it seems that Dani has found peace, she's been gaslit and manipulated to join this cult. It's not triumphant that she escaped a shit situation.
It's a pretty film, it's a striking film, about one woman's realization that a (let's be honest, hetero) relationship with a gaslighting asshole is not where it's at. I think this is more palatable than "Hereditary" probably is.
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