HEREDITARY (2018) - A masterwork of true horror on every level

Hereditary is a 2018 supernatural horror film written and directed by Ari Aster in his feature directorial debut. The film stars Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Gabriel Byrne, and Ann Dowd, and tells the story of the Graham family following the death of their grandmother. The family slowly crumbles apart as each member struggles in their own way to cope with a family tragedy while also dealing with what may or may not be a supernatural haunting.

The film first premiered on January 21, 2018 at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, receiving a high amount of critical acclaim, with several critics comparing it to the likes of The Shining and The Exorcist--the two films that basically defined the horror genre--and while I hesitate to say that Hereditary reaches their level, it definitely comes close. Unlike most horror movies, it is a very well made film and a truly powerful experience that haunted me long after watching it.


Hereditary's trailer immediately caught my attention when I first saw it with its great cinematography and the fact that it shows you what it feels like to watch the movie without ever giving away anything about the movie, and it's these two things that are probably Hereditary's greatest strengths. The movie has some really unique and interesting use of cinematography in which the house and the characters are shot as if they were dolls in a dollhouse--an intentional move that connects to protagonist Annie Graham's hobby/profession as an artist who creates miniatures for art galleries, while also connecting to the deeper mystery behind Hereditary's plot; over the course of the film, you can't help but wonder of these characters have any real choice over their actions or if they are just being controlled like dolls in a dollhouse.

Which leads me to perhaps the movie's greatest strength--its balls to the wall insane story. Hereditary's writer and director Ari Aster knows that audiences are already familiar with all the worn out tropes of horror and uses our knowledge against us. Whatever story you think the movie will have based on the trailer, you're wrong. Whatever theories you come up with during the movie, you're wrong. Whatever you think will happen to one character, you're wrong. The movie hints that it will be about A, but it turns out it's actually B, but in a twist reveal, it's actually C. And in a world full of horror movies with the cliche "weird kid is being possessed by demons, call in a priest who explains everything and tries to exorcise the kid, everything goes crazy and everyone dies, demon appears to be gone but is actually still there" story, Hereditary is shocking and surprising and unpredictable.

Toni Collette gives a truly Oscar-worthy performance as a mother who slowly begins to lose her mind over the course of the film as she becomes more and more deranged and desperate. She had to hit such a wide range of emotion, with some scenes requiring her to give an extremely strong performance without going over the top. I won't be surprised if she doesn't get a nomination at all since the Oscars don't have much love for genre films, but she sure as hell deserves one (just like my man Andy Serkis did for War for the Planet of the Apes).

Gabriel Byrne and Milly Shapiro do a great job with what they're given as the father and daughter, respectively, but Alex Wolff's performance is what really caught me off guard. His role in the movie is surprisingly much more central and complex than what the film's marketing would lead you to believe, and he gives a hauntingly powerful performance in some scenes that are nearly impossible to imagine. He definitely has some room to improve (his crying skills aren't all there) but he definitely deserves a lot of praise and I'm excited to see his future in the movie industry.


Final Verdict
This movie is haunting and chilling to the core. Of course, fear is subjective and what scares one person may do very little to another, but this movie hit me deep. It made me scared to look at corners at night. It made me scared to drive alone at night. I saw bags on the floor and I thought they were severed limbs at first. The more I thought about the movie and its little details, the more terrified I was. My friends and I ate out at IHOb afterwards and we had so much to talk about regarding the movie; what parts scared us the most, theorizing about what this part or that part of the movie meant, how we weren't sleeping that night.

It takes a special kind of movie to be able to do all that. This isn't your Unfriendeds or your Blair Witches or your Annabelles or your Bye Bye Mans. This is on the level of The Babadook and maybe it deserves to be uttered in the same breath as The Exorcist and The Shining. It's about the demons we may have inherited from our parents, both psychological and perhaps even supernatural. There are very few jump scares, but it's such a deeply psychological experience that it leaves an imprint in your mind that lasts much longer than any cheap jump scare ever will.

Score: A

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