June 25, 2018 2 min to read

Hereditary

Hereditary isn’t about what you think it’s about, and it shatters your expectation over and over again.

by Zach Saul

Hereditary isn’t about what you think it’s about, and it shatters your expectation multiple times during the movie. The acting is fantastic, Toni Collette and Ann Dowd in particular deserve mention. What made this film so scary isn’t one particular image, or a performance, it’s Ari Aster’s willingness to exercise restraint. He’ll tell you in about a thousand subtle ways that something unsettling is coming, until you reach a point where your mental image is just as horrifying as the one he eventually shows you.

There are numerous technical aspects to Hereditary that are really exquisite. The movie’s opening camera shot is brilliant: the camera pans through a room and slowly reveals the inside of a miniature house that’s sitting on a table. Slowly the camera zooms in to the bedroom and then then Gabriel Byrne opens the door to check in on his child. The use of miniatures to explain the family’s mental state is really effective in Hereditary, and continues as the tension mounts. It’s a little bit of a trope in horror movies for the audience to wonder if something is a dream or reality - but the way Hereditary uses images of miniatures suggests that predestination is at play.

The cinematography doesn’t rely on elaborate sets or CGI, or jump scares and instead invites us into the psychological experience of the movie’s victims like truly great horror films do. We hear a click, or see a miniature representation (Toni Collette as Annie, is a miniatures artist) of doom, and we sense that dread is loming. The soundtrack is also a huge part of the Hereditary equation and Charlie (Milly Shapiro, who looks much less terrifying in real life) makes this clicking noise that always forebodes something atrocious happening.

Spoiler Alert - stop reading now if you plan on seeing the film

Where Hereditary fell off the rails a bit in my opinion is in its final third where the satanic spirits are running wild through this entire family. The build up in Hereditary does an excellent job of making you feel trapped, and gives you a feeling that this family’s fate was inescapable - and that relatable connection was weakened by a gratuitous crichendo. Truly great scary movies tap into a belief or fear we all have that whats taking place on screen could happen to us - even if in an abstract sense. For the most part Hereditary is successful in forming that relatable connection - but when Steve (Gabriel Byrne) is burned alive, and Annie (Toni Colette) is seen levitating into a satanic treehouse I felt it undermined itself a bit.

The Good: Hereditary is beautifully made and brilliantly acted. The characters are all reasonably compelling and the story is given the care it deserves (now always the case in Horror movies). The score is really effective and dynamic as well, it works in the quiet sequences just as well as the action scenes.

The Bad: I was absolutely rooting for it to end in the final thirty minutes. While I appreciate that might me the goal - I’m not sure the ending lived up to the build up that Hereditary created.