Hereditary: Movie Review

"Hereditary" as a horror film succeeds by focusing more on the real-life horrors that we encounter in the real-world - our relationships, secrets and inner demons. While there are supernatural elements no doubt, those take a back seat to the freakish unknowns of its protagonists the Graham family.

Annie Graham (Toni Collette) lives with her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), son Peter (Alex Wolff) and daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro). When her mother dies, family secrets are suddenly unveiled showing that the seemingly idyllic family has a dark past that might catch up to them sooner than Annie thought.

Its unrelenting tension was the key to the success of "Hereditary". Unlike your typical supernatural horror film, ghosts and demons take a back seat and there's little or no cop-out jump scares. In fact, the experience was surreal for its genre with its nonchalant pace, semi-quiet soundtrack, and artistic visuals. We could easily say that the film is beautiful as it is terrifying. The true horror is finding out the real story of the Grahams and the weird quirks of each individual member of the family. The film focuses heavily on the matriarch with Annie played by Toni Collette. The actress was well-fit to play the role of handling the huge waves of emotional circumstances her character experiences easily. Without her marvelous performance, the film could have easily failed. The film's biggest flaw would be its screenplay. In our opinion, it may be too unconventional for the typical horror fanatic. It has this artsy-feel that ramped up the tension but also slowed down the pace. As mentioned, there's really no cheap scares here and if that's what you're looking for then "Hereditary" is not the film for you. We also felt that the overall arc did not make sense. Without spoiling much, the elaborate plan and eventual revelation will be a complete shock but the methods to get there seem to be too complicated and reliant on specific circumstances that seem impossible to control. Beyond its unconventional facade or over-complicated plot, "Hereditary" just clicks as a horror film because, at its core, its designed and works out to be a really terrifying and unnerving and uncomfortable experience.

Rating: 4 and a half reels




Why you should watch it:
- unrelenting tension from start to finish
- superb acting from Toni Collette

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the plot is over-complicated
- fans of cheap scares may find this film lacking