Warning: Spoilers ahead.

This is a horror film that Ladbible claimed to be so scary that people were walking out of the cinema. So we wanted to see what it was all about.

Directed by Ari Aster, this A24 drama/horror looked very intriguing from the trailer. Based around a young couple that travels to Sweden with their friends to visit a mysterious mid-summer festival, we were wondering what dark scenes were ahead of us. Predictably, the Midsommar festival was not all that it seemed and it quickly turned into an incredibly violent, gory and bizarre event.

The film begins with a young girl called Dani who has just discovered that her sister and parents have been killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. The mysterious cause of death sets the film off on an intriguing foot, before diverging into a group of guys who are heading to Sweden for this fabled pagan-eske event. Dani is then invited on this trip by her boyfriend and they all head off.

When they arrive, they are met by a couple from London who were equally intrigued by the festival. Once they all head into the village, what's ahead of them, is something similar to  the film The Village. A place that's lost in time, all of its inhabitants are wearing white, dancing around whimsically and all on drugs. For the foreigners, they see it as a beautiful place that's the perfect encapsulation of a simple life. But for us, we saw it as creepy and the type of place you don't want to stay in – we've seen a lot of horror films...

As the film goes on the group discover the horrific traditions of the cult and find themselves engrained into the culture. 

I don't want to give any more away because it will spoil the film. But overall you can get an idea of what is going to happen.

Now, onto what I thought of it.

Well, it's fair to say that this film has beautiful and extraordinary cinematography. With the bright colours, picturesque landscape and eerie music, it's has all of the ingredients for a fantastic horror film. Where it let itself down, in my opinion, is the fact that it lasted just under 3 hours and the drama was spread out. There were bits in the film in which I was sitting there thinking, "can something please happen now". Granted, when it did I was grossed out. I just wish they cut an hour or so out of this film.

Another downfall for me, was that they never explained why the festival was a thing and why they made such sacrifices. This might be done so that it made the film more mysterious, but I was left thinking "what is the point"? 

Thirdly, the characters. Now, the acting was superb. But the characters for me, just weren't very likeable. I know in horror films there tends to be an idiot character who is the first to die, but with this film I didn't really care who survived and who didn't. They also underused Will Poulter – yes, he is in it, although you don't really notice.

Overall, I think that just like Hereditary, this film was overhyped and that it tried too hard. If it stripped itself back, it could have been excellent. I would say to watch it though as the concept is interesting, it just hasn't been executed correctly. 

Image Credit: Engadget.co.uk