Hereditary
Directed by:
Ari AsterScreenplay:
Ari AsterCinematography:
Pawel PogorzelskiComposer:
Colin StetsonCast:
Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Mallory Bechtel, Jarrod Phillips, Austin R. Grant, Brock McKinney, Morgan Lund, Ari Aster (more)Plots(1)
When her mother dies, Annie Graham (Toni Collette) and her family find themselves being terrorised by an evil force which has been left behind. With the presence seemingly focused on her teenage daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro), Annie desperately tries to uncover the horrifying secrets of her ancestry as she looks to protect her family from the sinister entity intent on destroying everything they know. (Entertainment in Video)
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Reviews (11)
I want to start my commentary on Hereditary with a reminiscence of a horror series and a very famous horror film. Do you know what the most impressive thing about the whole Hellraiser series was? It was not the creatures from hell, the screaming victims, or the splashes of blood. The most impressive scene is when an unknown man enters a bazaar and looks intensely at the salesman, who returns his gaze, and dryly asks, "What do you want?" - "The box." - "It is yours. It always has been." The viewer doesn't know where the screenwriter and director are leading him, but from the construction of the scene, he understands that he has encountered something fateful and extremely unsettling. The famous film The Shining doesn't show puppets in every other scene, but creatively and cleverly builds atmosphere and gradually unsettles not only its protagonists but also the viewer, letting them know where the boundaries of erupting madness and encounter with irrational evil begin. The director simply knows well that we fear most what we cannot see and do not know... From a single film, I cannot tell if Ari Aster is a director who people will go see just because of his name, but from our first encounter, I know that he is a skillful craftsman and, in terms of direction, clearly represents above-average quality within the genre. However, the situation is worse with his role as a screenwriter. What caught my attention in his title are basically two things that differ from the genre average, which - let's admit - is quite low. For one, unlike the genre average, Aster takes his time with the exposition. For a long time, he saves the jump scares and puppets, and the moviegoer has the feeling they are watching a psychological horror about a family falling apart due to alienation, guilt, bitterness, and increasing hatred. For an average genre fan, Hereditary will be slow and relatively intimate. Even the supernatural motif that appears roughly a third of the way into the film tends to be considered something that is meant to deceive the viewer for some time, and you do not attach much significance to it. Unfortunately, in the final third, the author descends onto a well-trodden path of supernatural horror with a satanic motif. It's a shame, as the psychological and mysterious aspect, which dealt with the unknown, was much more interesting to me, and I consider the result rather a malicious deception from Ari Aster. In terms of logic in building the story, the final part unfortunately clashes somewhat clumsily with the previous one, and as a viewer, I am not very satisfied with it. Either surprise me with something atmospheric that manages to precisely impact my emotions and psyche, and reveals nothing about the essence of the unknown evil, or introduce a complex, functioning mythology of the world you want to invite me into. The second thing is the successful casting choices, where, above all, Toni Collette and Milly Shapiro are true treasures for the film, and they could have been worked with even more intensively. Similarly, the musical aspect of the film works perfectly, creating tension and a growing sense of depression and doom. It is precisely because of them that I ultimately lean toward giving the film four stars. Overall impression: 70%.
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Unreasonably long and Toni Collette (true, ungrateful in terms of acting) is not able to handle the central character of a hysteric women. So much for the shortcomings that are unquestionable. Then there's another weakness regarding the final frantic twenty minutes, which lapses into a literally degraded guilty pleasure mode. And although we can enjoy it a lot, that´s for sure, it is in such a sharp contradiction with the slowly built creeping atmosphere full of hints that it doesn't match together. Not even remotely. Which is terribly unfortunate, because otherwise it is a great movie for a genre viewer looking for something slightly different but at the same time well-known.
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A film I never want to see again!! Hereditary has received a lot hype much like A Quiet Place, but the difference is that the former is loved and raved about by critics but hated by mainstream audiences, while the latter garners raves on both sides. Hereditary is not audience-friendly and can be placed in a similar variety of films to The Witch and Mother !, and it also features a twist that pisses-off most viewers. The film is a little over two hours long and is told at a very slow pace, thus impatient viewers may yawn with boredom, but if you can get sucked into the atmosphere, you will get an extraordinary experience that will make you very anxious to the point of being uncomfortable. The film is creatively shot, the camera angles are breathtaking for a debut, but above all it's the acting of Toni Collette, who delivers one of the most impressive female performances I've ever had the opportunity to see and if she doesn't get an Oscar nomination I'll be very surprised. Praise also goes to Milly Shapiro who wins the award for ugliest little girl I've ever seen, she’ll give you chills! Hereditary sets a new direction in horror and is very close to The Exorcist and The Shining. Definitely don't expect any jump-scares or gore, rather expect a disturbing, psychological, emotional horror drama, but one that has one of the most intense finales I've seen in a long time. A couple of scenes are very uncomfortable to the point of hard to watch and will definitely stick in my mind for a long time. I felt anxious and uncomfortable after leaving the cinema and the two near crashes on the way home didn't add much to the mood. 85%.
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Going through many of the reactions, I'm thinking that horror filmmakers couldn't possibly want anything more than scandalized reviews about the fact that the audience found out at the end that they were actually watching an occult horror film. I'll go for five after the third viewing, I promise. It's really just a matter of tightening a few screws and trying to teach Alex Wolff to cry so we can have a future horror classic to show for it. I'm looking forward to Midsommar like a kid.
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Although I much appreciate the unconventional attention management and the minimum of mainstream elements, I have my reservations. The pacing is simply poor and there are a number of empty scenes with very limited narrative value that stick out of an already inadequate runtime. In the final half hour, however, the plot suddenly kicks into high gear and the depressing portrait of a family tragedy completely gives way to a horror feast and an elaborate explanation of the whole plot (personally, I had a big issue with it). On the other hand, it is admirable how Aster manages to mask the stagnation of the plot by constantly playing unpleasant music and visual games with the environment, and how he handles really suspenseful or suggestive sequences, which are few but all the more impressive (mainly because the viewer has to engage their own imagination). And yet, I'm still bothered by the story, which simply leaves too many question marks and oddities for me to be carelessly carried away by the uniquely constructed atmosphere. Maybe after another viewing I'll reconsider, for the time being, though, I’m not going any further.
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