Midsommar vs. The Wicker Man?

Midsommar is crude and silly by comparison.

I thought Midsommar was awful. Inexplicable people doing inexplicable things for inexplicable reasons. The Wicker Man is better.

I enjoyed Midsommar more, but The Wicker Man had also been spoiled for me the first time I saw it.

The Wicker Man

Wicker Man- it's tight, quick, not meandering. Not Pompous. Lucid. Like Airplane!'s density of jokes with how much it beats the viewer over the head with symbolism. Lacks the subplot that I had missed from Midsommar that I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when someone tells me the boyfriend deserved it. Midsommar seems like a film student or two watched the Wicker Man, decided to adapt it to their generation and life situation, superimposed subplots from conflicts within the couple and between the grad students, added vivid, vibrantly colorful style, and then acted as if they were on xanax bars, not responding as their friends go missing.
I'd like to know a movie that is to Hereditary, what the Wicker Man is to Midsommar.

The Wicker Man.

Stranger, more compact, smarter, more literary.

Midsommar -- much like Hereditary -- felt like a slick remix of ideas from superior films, but somehow (for me) Ari Aster gets the rhythm wrong. Horror is a lot like comedy, and rhythm is important to whether or not it works. I don't like Aster's 'delivery'. But then again, I don't like Wes Craven's or a couple of other major horror directors' rhythms either, so Aster is in good company.

It also probably didn't help that I saw Midsommar with a Swedish person who found it even more eye-rollingly silly than I did. There was at least one muttering of 'Americans!' and a handful of groans.

The Wicker Man.

The Wicker Man.


I like both but The Wicker Man is leaner, at nearly a full hour shorter.

I personally prefer the British pagan locals over the Swedish ones present in Midsommar (I am British though so it could be a bias on my part).

I feel the mystery elements were much better presented in The Wicker Man.

Midsommar is another Ari Aster 'black comedy, anxiety horror' film, it's goofier than The Wicker Man, true The Wicker Man is strange at times but it's endearing with it's musical numbers whilst Midsommar has a crude and silly stoner humor to it.

Sergeant Howie is a superior protagonist, he's a noble yet foolish and self-righteous man. The set of university friends in Midsommar are bickering fools. Pugh's character is quite sympathetic whilst her boyfriend Christian is self centered, Mark is a stoner fool whilst Josh is an alright character.

Both movies have similar endings in a way, with the fires. The Wicker Man's is much more horrifying whilst Midsommar opts for a catharthic release.

I guess you could say Midsommar has slicker photography and snappier film editing but those are givens since it's 46 years The Wicker Man's junior.