Hereditary (2018)
Directed by Ari Aster
Lately I’ve been trying to watch and review some more current titles, instead of boring you guys with 30-year-old obscure slasher movies the whole month lol. Hereditary popped up on Prime Video so I instantly added it to my watch list. I’ve heard good things about it, and I had a night where my wife was gone (she dislikes supernatural horror) and my daughter was sleeping. I didn’t read much about this movie, because I wanted to learn as I was watching it.
I won’t give too much away for the movie, so no spoilers for this. This movie is done very much in the 1970s style of horror. It is a slow burn that leads up to an ending that kind of makes you think or even blows your mind a little so I want to keep the integrity of that for you guys. The plot is “After the family matriarch passes away, a grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences, and begin to unravel dark secrets”. At least that’s what IMDB has. Its rather vague but like I mentioned early, its better to know very little going into this and being surprised and drawn into the movie, like I was. You get some scenes of intense gore, frightening scenes of supernatural occurrences and you’re basically on edge the whole time. The movie relies heavily on atmosphere and subtle visuals.
There isn’t much in the way of special effects, some scenes of gore, very few but what there was, was very effective. What really is the strength of this film is the acting. My lord this is some of the best acting I’ve seen in a horror movie in a long, long time. Especially the mother played by Toni Collette. There is a scene where she has an emotional breakdown screaming “I just want to die” and man that was gut wrenching, the emotional trauma that she goes through, through the course of this movie is intense and you can feel it not only in her words and actions but in the facial expressions she has. Probably the most uneven performance is by Alex Wolff, he plays Peter the son. Some scenes he’s great but in other scenes where he flees and yells, it sounds so forced and fake. This movie has a rather small cast, of about 5 important characters and the rest is just small roles and extras.
The dialogue is great, it is simple enough that it feels genuine and not forced. The strength of the acting helps keep the movie grounded. The camera work is also pretty impressive. There is a scene during a funeral that the camera sinks down into the ground as the casket is lowered. I said “wow that was cool” out loud during it, haha. This movie captures that atmospheric edginess that movies today blow off or don’t do correctly. One of the most memorable examples of that type of suspense is in Halloween 1978. There is a scene where Laurie is standing in the doorway, the camera is focused on her, and slowly behind her you see Michael’s mask show up. Hereditary does similar things towards the end and I loved it. Instead of relying on quick jumps, this movie takes its time and some people might find that boring, but it is much more effective.
I really enjoyed this movie. Apparently so did many other people, since its rating is currently 7.3/10 on IMDB. The use of atmosphere, suspense and great acting pushes this movie above lots of other horror movies of the time. This really fits at home with the 1970s style of The Exorcist or The Omen. The movie is over 2 hours long, so some people might have a hard time getting through it, but I suggest you stick around, you wont be disappointed. I give Hereditary an A-, it is rather long, so that will probably hinder my subsequent viewings, but the acting is so good that I can’t grade it any lower. Another thing I’ll add, an IMDB contributor said that this movie could even stand alone as a Drama, because of the emotional rollercoaster that the characters go through. That is a very interesting take and it really makes sense. The horror elements are taken back a little to get you to feel for the characters. For that, this movie is great.
