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)
Beautifully nasty, dark, stifling, chilling. Something few people will appreciate as much as the knowledgeable horror fans. In Hereditary you need to be able to enjoy the slow, atmospheric, unsettling and emotionally tense first half (or rather, three quarters) as much as the literal (beautiful, if you can call it that) horror atrocities into which the film dives in the end. Half the people will say that it’s slow and lacking cheap attractions (“where are the jump scares?”), while the other half will lament that it didn’t stick to only hints all the way. I love how this film portrays the broken relationships in that family. I love how the director, with only one sound, is able to generate a deeper awful feeling than a dozen jump scares and gore scenes of other films. I love how the actors (excellent, all of them), with just one look and expression, managed to make me shiver and tremble. I haven’t felt so permanently nervous in film in a long time. And last but not least, the advertising campaign also deserves praise for being able to be attractive without giving almost anything away. I strongly advise potential viewers against reading any random comment about this film, because sooner or later, some idiot will say something that you really don’t want to know; the moment when I knew this the film hooked up, and I realised wasn’t watching your average overrated horror indie flick that’s forgotten after a year. Thanks to Planet Dark for the early preview at Kino pilotů, free of any random teenagers going to the multiplex for the new James Wan movie.
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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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Hereditary is a truly unconventional genre blend that will not leave any viewer cold. A pervasive and very disturbing atmosphere permeates this family drama, which sets the stage for mystery horror. In this case, however, it is not so much about the scares and frightening scenes as it is about building an extremely uncomfortable and chilling feeling. The actors were well chosen and do a very good job, with each of them contributing more than one memorable scene. Perhaps the only thing that bothered me about the final form of the film was the somewhat wildly conceived ending, which seemed a bit over-the-top script-wise.
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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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Hereditary is a horror film for a slightly more discerning viewer who does not mind the sluggish pace and absence of genre clichès and jump-scares, but conversely appreciates the deeper dialogue and innovative way of narrating an otherwise traditional horror story. The film has a minimalist, almost ever-present and disturbing soundtrack, as well as original visual games that involve placing the characters in a space with a symbolically surreal approach to the scene of horror that takes place (the cottage, dummies). It’s not quite a mainstream genre movie with the depth of a full-fledged psychological drama of a family with a really long-kept secret. Except that the revelation of said secret did not shake me as much as I had expected after all that drama.
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