Hereditary tries to inherit the spine-tingling, horrifying title of the 1960s and 1970s horrors such as Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist but fails to deliver. It fails because Hereditary loses its nerves and rather than being an interesting examination of maternal horror and mental illness slowly veers into a pastiche of every famous horror you’ve ever seen.
Hereditary starts with the death of Annie Graham (Toni Collette) mother, Ellen. She lives with her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) and their teenage children Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro). Slowly, Annie starts to discover that her mother has left her a sinister and supernatural inheritance or, maybe she’s just inherited the family’s other illness, insanity.
First off – Hereditary is not the scariest film since the Exorcist. It is a thriller with a few horrifying scenes. The first 30 mins lead you to think this film foreshadows a new dawn in horror films. It does not. There’s lots of foreshadowing, very clever use of sound and reliance on tried and tested horror techniques. However, the ending just descends into a mash-up of every famous horror film you’ve ever seen: The Exorcist, The Host
I’m genuinely terrified of horror films – never watched Saw, The Ring etc. It does try to be like a 1970s style film but doesn’t come that close. The Iranian horror of 2016 “Under The Shadow” is scarier as is “Sixth Sense”. Yes, the Sixth Sense. The first 30 mins of Hereditary is clever, the use of sound and the unexpected twist and how the camera maintains its focus on Peter’s eyes heightens the suspense, however after that the taut grip starts to loosen rapidly.
Is it diverse?
Yes, the story is somewhat diverse. In his debut feature, Ari Aster introduced a genuine mental health theme that had he kept his nerve and followed through on the idea, eg. that a catastrophic event such as losing a loved one can bring on a psychotic episode, would have made for a very interesting film. The horror of late has turned its gaze onto maternal horror and questioning the paranoia that motherhood can inflict on certain women – is it all in their mind, are they hysterical? In Hereditary, toxic motherhood is briefly touched upon when Annie states that she and her mother were estranged. This was actually one of the more interesting moments of the film and should have been explored more. I think this was examined and handled better in Under The Shadow (2016).
Verdict
How do you know when a film doesn’t deliver in a particular genre? The audience starts to laugh at scenes that are supposed to be genuinely terrifying. This is a wait for dvd or if you get a free or have an unlimited cinema card then possibly go and watch in the cinema. It is not worth paying London cinema prices, £15 (ahem)!
Hereditary is on general release across the UK.
i don’t think u hav ur head in the right place
what a shit review. lmao.”I’m genuinely terrified of horror films–never watched Saw or The Ring…”
LMFAO. The Ring is about as scary as, umm, Scream from the 90s. Hereditary is deeply unsettling. Imagine the imagery of a mother going to the store, only to open the door to her car and see the decapitated body of her daughter. What adds insult to injury is the son just left her in there and goes into a state of shock, and listens to the screams as he stayed awake the entire night. Some deeply psychological terror right there. I was watching it with my grandmother and had to turn it off because it was too much. But, sure, The Ring is too much? lmfao…..
I can’t imagine the head space of the audience *laughing* at any part of this film. I suggest teenage machismo was at play, or else there were some genuinely screwed up people in that theater.
I don’t understand someone “Reviewing” a said movie if they don’t enjoy or even respect a cretin genre…..
Nah, to make it sound like this was a second rate horror film is wrong. It was very well done. Or, I should say very well done until the ending. While this ending was telegraphed throughout the film, it doesn’t make it any less the weakest part of the movie. We’ve seen this type of ending before, in a lot of other films.
It wasn’t a horrible ending, it’s just that compared to the rest of the film it was the weakest link. Now if we went through all these end motions, and then the kid broke character and started screaming in the last final frames (it didn’t really work) now that would be a far better ending. As it is, it reminded me of the end of evil dead 2- only more numb.
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I agree it was well shot but, the ending took away from the powerful first 45 minutes. You’ve made some really valid points.
so you saw the movie with an audience of idiots and, idiotically, used their immature reaction as a gauge of the movies quality? you stoopid