Hereditary is a really good scare machine. That much is certain. If scares are what you’re paying ticket price for, then Hereditary will not disappoint. However, in an age of just stellar horror films, Hereditary almost gets there, but nearly misses the upper echelon horror film as it scares the hell out of you along the way.
Annie (Toni Collette) has just lost her mother, with whom she was estranged for the last years of her life. Her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) and son Peter (Alex Wolff) are mostly unaffected, but youngest daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) was closer to grandma that she was Annie. Annie seeks out therapy to get her feelings out, where she meets Joan (Anne Dowd), who also shares a lost loved one, and the two connect. After another shocking event, the family starts to look into Charlie’s connection to grandma, and what exactly grandma was doing while Annie and her were estranged…
Hereditary doesn’t scare you from beginning to end, it eases you in, like all great scary movies. There’s a creepy kid, terrifying noises, and a peculiar profession (seriously, can’t someone be an accountant in a horror movie?). Cameras move slowly, following the family around their house, which starts to resemble the model houses Annie builds. To keep the audience on their guard in that first hour, a shadowy figure in the night will show up or a bird will hit a window or Charlie will make that terrifying noise with her mouth while we learn about the inner workings of the family. Then something shocking happens about 30 minutes in, zagging when I thought the story would zig for a while. That big decision results in the introduction of the inevitable supernatural elements that are being teased out. That supernatural malevolence seeps its way into the home, causing sleep loss and a total distortion of reality, further setting the audience up for something. And oh, boy, does that something deliver. A character wakes up in the dark, and walks downstairs with shadows everywhere, VERY slowy, and turns around VEEEERRRRYYYYY slowly to see if there are forces at work around the house, at which point each audience member is cringing or covering their face or distorting their body (me) to not fully see what is about to happen. Though not very original, the images are and jumps are still pretty jarring, and make Hereditary’s third act scares well worth the wait.
The themes and story are more of a mixed bag. The beginning dispatches the acting talents of Toni Collette and Alex Wolff to talk about the illusion of choices and perhaps being a family of black sheep, which is pretty heavy and certainly emotionally resonant stuff. Supernatural elements, when used effectively, can really drive home these themes and make them pack a wallop. In Hereditary, the supernatural elements consume any themes going on by the third act of the film, replacing emotional investment with investment in plot and solving the mystery of grandma. Had writer/director Ari Aster learned lessons from the newer era of horror instead of the old (Oh hi obvious Rosemary’s Baby and Exorcist references), great modern horror succeeds because the audience grows to care for its protagonists and centers the movie around them. The third act of Hereditary moves our protagonists aside, leading to an ending so boldly crazy that it generated more than a few chuckles at my screening, while in my head I was just going, “Wait…WHAT????” Wolff and (especially) Collette fully commit to the movie though, softening the bonkers blow.
I sadly think Hereditary will become a victim of too strong a film festival buzz in an era where terms like “Scariest movie in years” gets tossed around too easily. It’s certainly a fun time in my book, and I think would be pretty great for a date. But, in my opinion, take a relative you maybe aren’t super fond of to this film and see what they think of you asking them to see THIS movie. Should lead to some hilariously awkward family gatherings, that’s for sure.