Hereditary (2018)

I saw the trailer of Hereditary a couple of times in cinemas before the movies started but it didn't impress me so I decided I would pass it. Over the past months though, pretty much everyone in the blogosphere has been speaking so highly of it that I rethought my decision and decided to watch it for my horror challenge.

The film follows a family of four, Annie (Toni Collette), her husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), son, Peter (Alex Wolff) and daughter, Charlie (Milly Shapiro), after the death of the family matriarch. While each member is still trying to handle the grief their own way, a tragedy occurs and they learn things aren't as they seem. 

Despite some predictable elements --I knew there was something going on with Joanne as soon as the character was introduced--, the story is quite original and twisted, and, although it unfolds very slowly, it grabs your attention right from the start and keeps you glued to the screen, anxious and frightened, until the very (unfortunately unsatisfying) end. The first part of the film is more of a dark family drama than a horror but the drama there works beautifully and, as someone whose family has been through something like that, the blaming, the guilt, the fighting, it feels so real it's heartbreaking.

And it's thank to that drama that director and writer Ari Aster can properly develop the characters, make them believable and relatable. We find ourselves really invested in them, we care about them and root for them --maybe not all of them, but it's still impressive considering how poorly nowadays horrors do under this aspect-- and when the terrible things happen, it's has a huge impact on us.

Of course, the cast deserves to be praised for it too. First of all, Toni Collette. She gives such an intense, mesmerizing performance as the mother who descends into madness --her presence and vulnerability are outstanding, especially during the confrontation between her character and her son. Alex Wolff stole the scene for me though as he gives an exceptional performance as the son --and frankly, I don't give a damn if he doesn't look anything like the actors playing his parents. Not all kids look like their parents in real life anyway. Milly Shapiro also gives a strong performance, but the hype surrounding her (haunting and creepy) performance was so high that it kind of let me down. It's not as disappointing as Gabriel Byrne's performance as the husband/father though as he pretty much sleepwalks through the movie.

A24

As his directorial debut, Ari Aster did a really good job. Although some scenes drag on a little, he was able to establish such an eerie, creepy, unsettling atmosphere throughout the whole movie, and it's beyond impressive.

Ultimately, Hereditary is more than your typical horror as it deals with themes such as family, loss, grief, specifically dwelling into the relationship between parents and their children. It's not the kind of horror that relies on stupid scare-jumps to scare its audience, it's the kind of film that relies on the atmosphere and the beautiful and terrifying visuals. It's different and it works because of it.