MichaelEternity’s review published on Letterboxd:
Interesting how this movie plays differently depending on who's watching it. Wife saw it and was quite disturbed and perplexed, whereas I find it to be a marvelous wry comedy (beyond the surface of atmospheric dread, of course) and strangely comforting. Yeah creepy, unpleasant stuff is happening all the time and uniquely, masterfully so thanks to Robert Eggers and his craftsmen, but the richness of the aesthetic is so inviting and the tone is so slyly playful that I'm just happy as a clam taking it all in again. Maybe it has an extra layer to tickle cinephiles, like its meticulously researched form functions as a love letter to genre fans. Hell, if the exteriors had all been made out of miniatures and quilted backdrops, and a framed picture of Bill Murray were hanging on the wall, this could have been a Wes Anderson movie. He's already got half the cast on his payroll! And it's only a matter of time until he makes something in B&W and adds Pattinson to the team. Plus in signature Anderson style: aspect ratio hijinks, someone kills a harmless animal, deadpan exchanges happen all the time, the characters are wildly emotionally confused, at one point early on they stop and pose right for the camera, and there's a clear fetishization of antiquity, tactile simulacrum of the rituals and artifacts of yore.
