Midsommar

Midsommar is a 2019 folk horror film written and directed by Ari Aster and starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, and Will Poulter. It follows a group of friends who travel to Sweden for a festival that occurs once every ninety years and find themselves in the clutches of a pagan cult.

Plot
With their relationship in trouble, a young American couple travel to a fabled Swedish midsummer festival where a seemingly pastoral paradise transforms into a sinister, dread-soaked nightmare as the locals reveal their terrifying agenda.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) While not as good as Hereditary, another film directed by Ari Aster, the film manages to be extremely terrifying with its high violence.
 * 2) The protagonist, Dani, is incredibly sympathetic, especially because of what she's going through.
 * 3) It has all of the violence, gore, and scares that you would expect in a horror movie, and it doesn't disappoint at all. Unlike other horror films like Hostel that only uses gore to gross out the audience, the gore is actually part of the plot.
 * 4) * The film's psychological elements and drug sequences only help make the movie more unsettling to watch.
 * 5) * It even starts off slow, and gradually gets even scarier as the movie runs.
 * 6) * It also relies more on suspense and anticipation rather than cheap jump-scares.
 * 7) Florence Pugh gives off an amazing performance. She doesn't overact or underact. Her performance is completely flawless.
 * 8) * Even the other actors give great performances.
 * 9) Even though Dani and Christian's relationship is failing, their actors still have great chemistry with each other.
 * 10) Amazing cinematography. In one scene where the characters are in the car, driving to the festival in Sweden, the shot becomes upside-down, creating a sense of uneasiness towards the viewer.
 * 11) The scene where the elders jump off a cliff to their deaths is one of the most shocking parts of the movie.
 * 12) The gore in the film is highly realistic, making the film all scarier and traumatizing.
 * 13) Like Hereditary, it has a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack that only adds into the nightmare fuel for the film.
 * 14) Also like Hereditary, it has a theme about pagan cults and it's well-executed.
 * 15) Its director's cut is way better.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Christian and Mark aren't really likable characters.
 * 2) For some reason, there's white borders which can get distracting.
 * 3) The sex ritual scene is insanely cringe-worthy.
 * 4) Misleading Poster: The poster gives people the impression that it’s a drama, when really, it’s an incredibly violent horror film.

Reception
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 83% based on 311 reviews, with an average rating of 7.54/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Ambitious, impressively crafted, and above all unsettling, Midsommar further proves writer-director Ari Aster is a horror auteur to be reckoned with." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, up from Hereditary 's "D+." PostTrak audiences gave it 3 out of 5 stars and a 50% definite recommend.