The film opens with a lengthy sequence where a girl's family meets with tragedy. Unusually for a horror film, this tragedy is filmed and treated with all of the respect usually reserved for a serious drama about loss. For the first 3/4ths of the movie, you can almost believe that things will be sad but ultimately okay. The college kids do a lot of drugs and those trip sequences are very upsetting but the Swedes are so kindly and welcoming, it's hard to be scared of them. Someone does get their skull caved in with a wooden mallet however, so watch out.
I really liked the incomprehensible, smiling strangeness of the Swedish cultists. They are all nodding heads and smiling faces and broken English. I'm reminded strongly of The Wicker Man (the original, actually good 1973 film that is.) There's this great, teasing sense of will-they-or-won't-they. There are innocent explanations but the rituals seem to be disquietingly focused on simulated murder and the cultists keep trying to separate everyone.
I really liked this film. It's much more psychodrama than horror, although it's not for the squeamish. There's no jump scares and I was able to sleep easily after seeing it, but it's haunting and eerie. The sun glaring as bright as heatstroke and everyone too happy, too manic. One of the strangest and most interesting things the cultists do is imitate the college kids. One of them is freaked out by their rituals and begins screaming and sobbing. All the cultists around her start screaming and wailing as well. It's a strange simultaneous acceptance of and sublimation of the individual. How can you rage against this murderous community when they mourn the death with you? It's an amazing sequence and I wonder if it's drawn from some real life cult?
Anyway, this movie is fascinating and unsettling. Really good work.
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