Hereditary - Movies With Ali Plumb

After the family matriarch passes away, a grieving household is haunted by tragic and unsettling incidents as twisted family secrets come to light in this dark and disturbing horror. Toni Collette plays Annie, a miniaturist artist who lives with her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), their teenage son Peter (Alex Wolff) and their 13-year-old daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro). And… to say any more would be to say too much.

Pros:

• This is not a mainstream, easy-viewing blockbuster horror like, say, The Quiet Place or It. This is a slow, uncomfortable watch that plays with your emotions and makes you hold your breath. You know that feeling of dread after your parents have a blazing row at the dinner table? That awful silence that swallows up the room and makes your head sweat? That’s Hereditary: a twisted, creepy, hella uncomfortable awkward silence of a film. It might remind you of 2016’s The Witch, if that helps you place its tone (only this movie isn’t set in the 17th century and – spoiler alert – doesn’t feature any evil goats). This is a film seemingly designed to delight arthouse horror aficionados and frustrate the casual slasher fan, much like last year’s It Comes At Night or, again, The Witch. It’s good, but you have been warned.
• Toni Collette is superb. She’s been great in so many things for so long – Emma (1996), The Sixth Sense (1999), The Hours (2002) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006), to name but a few – but here she’s really quite exceptional. There’s so much to convey, so much pain and suffering to get across without revealing too much… she’s really incredible. That’s not say the supporting cast aren’t great too, with Alex Wolff deserving particular attention, if only because you may know him best for his work in tonally very different pieces, such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Nickelodeon musical comedy series The Naked Brothers Band. No, really.
• Writer-director Ari Aster has given us a film of two halves. The first is full of creeping dread, the second a noticeably faster affair. As well as the painful tone and the exceptional acting, there’s also clever, delicately constructed story that pokes and prods at you long after you’ve walked out of the cinema. If you enjoy it as much as I did, you’ll think about watching it twice, just to properly unlock it.

Cons:

• The pace, particularly in the first hour, really is slow. As the story unfolds, you start to realise quite why this is the case, but if there is anyone in the cinema with you not totally on board, you can expect a decent amount of chatting at the back and cheeky glances at glowing phone screens. If you’re curious about watching Hereditary on the big screen, I’d actively suggest catching it at the smallest, cutest, artiest cinema possible.
• While it works most of the time, sometimes the story falters here and there. For example, there’s a very noticeable ADR moment (automated dialog replacement, where lines are re-recorded after the film wraps) to fix a potential upcoming plothole. Then there’s a heavy dollop of symbolism to do with eyes being scratched out that never comes to pass. There are inconsistencies, plot holes and a general sense of taking itself too seriously, and yet while it’s not all perfect, that doesn’t mean we aren’t dealing with one of the richest and intriguing horrors of the past few years.
• Some are going to say it’s not scary enough, particularly early on. This is a movie about dread and if you want actively scary scares, you’ll probably walk out disappointed.

Three word review: Excruciating horror excellence.