In The Wicker Man (1973), an uptight British police officer investigates a free-love island ("Children, what does the maypole represent?""A penis!"), and ends up being their virgin sacrifice. A naked lady bounces all over the place, and there's a lot of heterosexual shenanigans. Midsommar couldn't be worse, right?
Yes. It's very long and very boring, with the "surprise" ending broadcast loudly from scene 1. Bu with a little subtext-tweaking, it turns into a gay horror movie.
We did it all the time in the 80s. It was the only way we could survive those horrible teen-nerd movies.
Anthropology student Christian (Jack Reynor, top photo) was planning to break up with his girlfriend Dani, but then her familiy was murdered, so he stuck around out of pity. A year later, he's ready to pull the plug on the long-dead relationship and move on. His new man-crush Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren, below) invites him and another couple, Josh and Mark, back to his village in northern Sweden to witness an ancient pagan midsummer festival.
Dani invites herself along.
Um...it was really supposed to be all boys, buddy-bonding, late-night groping, and orgies with Swedish studs, but....Imagine the discomfort of sharing an 8-hour plane flight with your soon-to-be ex, while the guy you are crushing on is sitting right across the aisle!
Things go wrong immediately when Dani has a bad trip on some magic mushrooms. And when some of the village elders commit suicide by jumping off a cliff.
I'd be on the next bus back to Stockholm at that point, but the gang sticks around.
Mark (Will Poulter) is lured away by a naked lady to his death. So much for heterosexual desire! It can only end badly, either with a fragile, clingy, basket-case girlfriend or with a murdeer.
Josh (William Jackson Harper) goes out in search of his boyfriend, and is killed by a naked man wearing Mark's face as a mask. A nightmare of heavily symbolic homoerotic desires
Simon and Connie are separated and killed off camera.
Then Christian faces a fate worse than death: he is paralyzed and forced to have sex with a naked lady.
Horrifying!
Of course the only way the villagers can get him to do the deed is against his will. He's into guys!
Turns out that the villagers need nine human sacrifices: four outsiders, four villagers, and one who could be either, chosen by the Festival Queen. That's why Pelle invited three people, and Ingemar two, so they'd have one leftover just in case.
For some reason Dani becomes Festival Queen, and has to decide: Christian or a random villager. Who does she choose? It's obvious, isn't it?
There are surprisingly few bouncing breasts, and enough Swedish-hunk chests and abs to keep you interested. Plus Christian's penis.
If you're interested in a bright, sunlit, openly-gay character, or any deliberate reference to same-sex desire, this movie ain't it. Everyone pretends that they never heard of gay people. But for a blast to the past, to the old days when gay people never appeared in movies except in occasional "fag" slurs, it's a pleasant diversion.
And did I mention Christian's penis?