Hereditary

2018’s Hereditary, written and directed by Ari Aster.

Starring Toni Collete, Alex Wolff, Gabriel Byrne, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, and Mallory Bechtel.

What is it about?

Hereditary is a horror film about a family dealing with the loss of their maternal grandmother. Mother and miniature artist, Toni Collete, Father, Gabriel Byrne, Daughter, Milly Shapiro, and Son, Alex Wolff, need to sort through their feelings of grief and trauma. Buried deep underneath the loss, are the shadowy secrets of the family. As the revelations burrow upwards, so too do supernatural elements. Will these things coalesce into horror for the family?

Why is it worth seeing?

Hereditary is the astonishingly confident feature debut of writer/director Ari Aster. Much like the dollhouse miniatures that Collete’s mother character creates, it’s a disturbing metaphor for the dysfunction that can live within beautiful American homes with seemingly normal inhabitants. Aster uses this setting to show off some hypnotically unsettling imagery.

Here, Toni Collete gives the performance of a lifetime, and leaves no bases untouched as a flawed mother who needs to grieve and untangle her relationship with her mother, be there for her kids, and therapeutically come to grips with expressing her inner demons through her disturbingly true to life dioramas. Her role is the key element in turning Hereditary’s tone from merely strange to seriously anxiety provoking.

It is so easy to be cynical and bored of modern horror movies and their tired techniques. But the journey Aster takes us on, relies on a confidence of vision that jaggedly leaves us dreading that next corner, that next barely lit image, that next resolution we didn’t ask for. We are helpless victims to a parade of horrors- like any good sadist, Aster takes his time in watching us squirm.

In the film’s quieter moments, the nuclear family possesses a quiet that betrays the unspoken words that they share. There are secrets, horrible ones- and they will come to light. These revelations, shared sometimes with breathless anger, are a refreshing change from cliched jump scares of horror movies past. It’s Ordinary People, but with the supernatural. Or The Exorcist, in that we straight forwardly watch loved ones go a different way.

Some will undoubtedly find the material too unsettling, or merely too slow, for the patient approach to clinical dysfunction here. It’s their loss, as Hereditary shows its true colours in honouring horror classics that have come before, while creating something new and fresh that is difficult to unweave from the collective unconscious. Some things just run in the family.

Rating:

4/5

Trailer: Click Here.