Hereditary (2018)

Review

127min

Genre:       Drama, Horror, Mystery

Director:    Ari Aster

Cast:         Toni Collette, Milly Shapiro, Alex Wolff…and more

Writer:      Ari Aster

-Synopsis-

When her mysterious and domineering elderly mother dies, a woman and her family begin to have inexplicable and terrifying experiences as they uncover sinister secrets about their deceased matriarch—promising a bleak fate and threatening to destroy the family in this in this confounding mediation on ancestry from debutant writer/director Ari Aster.

The last five years in cinema horror has seen indie players like A24 and Blumhouse change the game with more nuanced, dramatic and socially reflective but less traditional fare like ‘It Follows’, ‘The Witch’, ‘It Comes at Night’ and Jordan Peele’s smash hit ‘Get Out’—capturing the imagination of critics and certain audiences, but irking plenty a horror purist and many lifetime devotees of the genre. Now A24 teams up with young first time director Ari Aster to bridge the gap, meticulously crafting an excruciatingly tense and ominous family drama filled with well-placed earthly and other-worldly horrors, taking inspiration from decades of supernatural horror and grisly thrillers . . . and yes even ‘The Exorcist’—although this generation’s answer to William Friedkin’s 1973 classic it is not.

Toni Collette stars as meticulous model-maker and mother of two ‘Annie’, living comfortably in idyllic suburban America with husband ‘Steve’ (Gabriel Byrne), their high school senior son ‘Peter’ (Alex Wolff) and idiosyncratic teenage daughter ‘Charlie’ (Milly Shapiro). But when her strict mother passes away, things descend into a downward spiral of guilt and tragedy, as baffling ominous experiences lead her to unravel the mystery of her origins and her dear departed mom—while being shadowed by a menacing force, with sinister plans for her family.

‘Hereditary’ is something of an atmospheric slow-build horror, building tension and unease with purpose and setting a foreboding tone from the very first frame, thanks in part to a moody and occasionally jarring score from saxophonist-turned-composer Colin Stetson. But it pulls no punches when it does decide to strike, hitting the audience with measured doses of brutality at unexpected times, keeping us guessing and never letting you become comfortable with the well developed characters you’ve invested in.

If you like your horror skin-crawlingly creepy and unsettling, then this is the film for you. Aster both references and practices the dark arts by mixing elements of Satanism and possession with core themes of mental illness and emotional distress, maintaining an air of mystery throughout and leaving you questioning whether you’re witnessing some truly terrifying paranormal activity, or manifestations of a severely troubled psyche . . . or both.

For an indie feature debut, this is an impressively crafted and visually stylish piece, rendered with a subtle dreamlike (or nightmarelike) haze by burgeoning cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski (iFeel, Tragedy Girls). Meanwhile the frights and scares are not constant or overbearing but strategically placed, building with horrifying effect and combining some graphic brutality and a bit of gore with the odd perfectly placed jump scare, and all mixed with a heavy atmosphere which weighs you down by the third act—and leaves you unsettled if not downright disturbed.

The production values here are also quite remarkable for an indie piece, with Aster and the producers making excellent use of a limited budget to create gruesome and alarming practical effects, and provide a family home full of character to place the action in. But it’s the extraordinarily detailed models and dioramas who prove to be one of the stars of the show, created by Collette’s character and playing a central role in the narrative, reflecting not only the events as they unfold around her, but her state of mind too.

The film is just as well cast as it is crafted, with the always excellent Toni Collette leading the line as a woman on the verge . . . and beyond it, using her previous experience of playing a struggling mother with a troubled child dealing with unthinkable concerns. Irish veteran Byrne meanwhile proves the tentative anchor of sanity in the piece, while the two young stars Shapiro and Wolff are its innocent but tainted dark heart—all contributing to making ‘Hereditary’ feel as much like a dark dysfunctional family drama as it does a horror, drawing the audience in before confounding us with their fate.

Ultimately ‘Hereditary’ might prove too nuanced for some horror fans and not consistently horrific enough for others, but for us Aster manages to strike the right balance between genuine human drama and truly creepy terror, creating an unsettling, expertly crafted and memorable meditation on loss, grief and mental illness—plus a powerful parable about the physical and psychological quirks we pass onto our children . . . and the demons.

The Bottom Line…

Excruciatingly tense family drama meets terrifying supernatural horror, Ari Aster takes inspiration from cinematic history and blends established tropes with nuance, adding a heavy atmosphere and socially a reflective core to a skilfully crafted genre piece—making for a gripping, disturbing and hugely impressive feature debut.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

The Witch (2016)

In the search for a more pious existence, a family of 17th century puritanical English settlers leave their plantation for the isolation of rural New England, but dark forces in the woods will test their faith and threaten their family in this stark period horror from production designer turned writer/director Robert Eggers.

Directed by Robert Eggers and starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie among others.

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