Hereditary (2018)
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Hereditary Movie Review
Hereditary is a 2018 horror film directed by Ari Aster and starring Toni Collette and Alex Wolff. It’s another terrific horror movie from this great decade.
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“Hail, Paimon!
Hail, Paimon! Hail!“
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Hereditary follows a cursed family whose grandmother dies and then their young daughter dies horrifically. The mother tries to communicate with her, but accidentally brings evil spirit forces to their family. This is very much in line of ‘The Conjuring’ as yet another deep and highly professional horror film.
I am of course talking about the emotional investment. Yes, the film is an unsettling piece for sue. But it also works as a strong family drama where all the bad stuff that’s happening to the family serves as a metaphor to how families never really can deal with or come to cope with a family member’s death. It’s such a deep movie because most people have lost someone during their lives so this story is bound to be very relatable to a lot of people.
The movie is incredibly moving and heartbreaking, but it’s also undeniably creepy. I wouldn’t say that I was scared, but I was most definitely creped out in a couple of highly unsettling sequences with very menacing imagery. The naked man laughing was a horrible sight as was that entire non-stop action third act which was exhilarating in quality and definitely quite dangerous in its tone.
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But the major reason why the movie works so well lies in its mythology. King Paiman is a major presence here and that’s a pagan creature going all the way back to Mesopotamia. Thus, the movie strayed away from your usual Christian creepy imagery and brought something entirely different and unique. And obviously that ending is incredibly brave and a true rare sight in genre movies where the whole family dies and the evil spirits win. I respected the hell out of that unforgettable finale.
The mother’s “friend” is an intriguing presence and the father and daughter are important characters and very well realized, but obviously the other two members are the heart and soul of the film. The mother’s determination was wonderful to witness and heartbreaking as well as the son’s guilt, fear and heartbreak.
Alex Wolff gave one hell of a performance. I have never seen him be this good in any movie before and this surely is his best role yet. He’s constantly believable and very strong at conveying emotion. But this is Toni Collette’s moment to shine and, sure enough, this is one Oscar-worthy, undeniably impressive performance. She demands your attention and she absolutely killed it in a highly difficult role, successfully conveying, anger, guilt, heartbreak, sadness, suspicion, hope and eventually determination.
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Hereditary has its flaws such as an over-reliance on some rather typical jump scares and horror scenes in the third act, and I also really disliked the daughter’s overly nasty, needlessly violent death. It definitely struggled in that slow, unappealing first act, but it became so much better afterwards.
It’s phenomenally edited and paced as it flies by for a rather long runtime for this genre. The direction from Ari Aster is also highly professional and one truly amazing directorial debut. The score is quite menacing and the cinematography is also terrific and it’s easy to see why this was a festival darling as some shots here are truly beautiful and haunting. But the smart script, dialogue and strong emotion make it a winner by all means.
The current horror renaissance continues with Hereditary which is another highly successful, excellent genre film on all fronts. Toni Colette gave a powerhouse performance, successfully managing to convey a wide variety of emotion whereas Alex Wolff is stupendously good too. It’s so well shot, impressively directed by Ari Aster and so well paced throughout. Its smart script, dialogue and undeniable emotional investment made it a phenomenal family drama, but it’s also a creepy horror film with a lot of unsettling imagery, an authentic mythology to it and a particularly admirable, brave ending which is such a rare sight in horror movies.
