Can the “year’s scariest movie” live up to the hype? Let’s dive in and find out.
I was excited, and a little nervous, to watch Hereditary after some advance hype and a viewing of the trailer promised something truly terrifying. It did turn out to be a harrowing experience, but not entirely in the ways that I expected. The film is pretty scary, particularly in its final act, but I found that the seemingly mundane tragedy of these characters’ existence took far more of an emotional toll than any supernatural elements. All credit due to the filmmakers for evoking such a powerful response, but at some point you start to wonder if this is really what you signed up for. Toni Collette stars as a woman who has recently lost her mother, with whom she had a troubled relationship. After strange occurrences start happening, she struggles with keeping herself and her family (husband and two teenage children) together. Collette deserves a ton of credit for her performance. It is incredibly easy for actors to aim for grief but deliver nothing but histrionics and melodrama. Collette turns in a visceral, believable performance, and she makes the early parts of the movie engaging even as we are waiting for the horror elements to ramp up. Less successful is Alex Wolff, who plays Collette’s teenage son. He is also saddled with an important role that calls for a lot of emoting, and I found that he really couldn’t pull it off. Certainly not in contrast to the far superior performance of his on-screen mother.
As far as the actual frights go, I found them to be really solid, without a reliance on easy jump scares or well-worn tropes. There are some creepy, graphic scenes that feel mostly original, which is hard to come by in this genre. Of the three recent horror movies I’ve seen that seem to index more heavily on misery than terror, Hereditary falls somewhere in the middle, not quite as scary as The Babadook, but certainly scarier than The Witch (which really wasn’t trying to be scary at all, at least in a visceral sense). All three take you down a path of familial strife that can be grinding and intense. Hereditary is far more likely to stick with you than something like The Purge, yet tread carefully if you value fun as a critical component of your Halloween playlist. The only real gripe I have with the film is the ending. It is certainly a logical extension of the plot, but lacks any real punch and comes across a bit lazy. Overall, I would recommend this one, but don’t put it on if you are expecting some light popcorn-movie chills.
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