The atmosphere of this movie is continuously dark, even when the scenery changes to the perpetually sunlit summer in Sweden. Dani's mental trauma is pretty well executed even though it's a little too contrived and ill explained (rather the events that lead to it)... but it still works and when Dani invites herself on the trip, there is the first bits of humor that are sprinkled throughout this movie, despite its' very dark nature...
The horrors depicted in the movie build relatively slowly, from the disturbing to the truly horrifying and are logically justified along the way (in at least a believable manner that requires less suspension of disbelief). They accumulate to the full-on realization of what is going on that is also foretold in some of the mid-film dialogue... Some of the highly disturbing scenes are actually broken up slightly by a twisted humor that the director actually drags out of the audience (which I saw first hand)... people laughing at aspects of the horror all together, as if orchestrated by the director.
The actors, who I barely knew except for Will Poulter, were great; having to endure pretty much the full spectrum of abuse that a bevy of movies could throw at them, much less a single film. I like that Josh (William Jackson Harper) is really the intellectual leader of this group and knows some of the things that will be happening.
I can't imagine this movie will be part of the Swedish tourism bureau's repertoire of midsommer things to do and see to entice tourists ... maybe I'll just wait for winter to visit Stockholm...
Others I've talked to have been of the same opinion, which is that this is a hard film to say "I enjoyed it" but I liked it a lot, much the same way you might like a slow burn hot sauce that you know will put you in pain but you have to taste it.
The horrors depicted in the movie build relatively slowly, from the disturbing to the truly horrifying and are logically justified along the way (in at least a believable manner that requires less suspension of disbelief). They accumulate to the full-on realization of what is going on that is also foretold in some of the mid-film dialogue... Some of the highly disturbing scenes are actually broken up slightly by a twisted humor that the director actually drags out of the audience (which I saw first hand)... people laughing at aspects of the horror all together, as if orchestrated by the director.
The actors, who I barely knew except for Will Poulter, were great; having to endure pretty much the full spectrum of abuse that a bevy of movies could throw at them, much less a single film. I like that Josh (William Jackson Harper) is really the intellectual leader of this group and knows some of the things that will be happening.
I can't imagine this movie will be part of the Swedish tourism bureau's repertoire of midsommer things to do and see to entice tourists ... maybe I'll just wait for winter to visit Stockholm...
Others I've talked to have been of the same opinion, which is that this is a hard film to say "I enjoyed it" but I liked it a lot, much the same way you might like a slow burn hot sauce that you know will put you in pain but you have to taste it.