Review - Hereditary

With this review, I'm doing something I've legitimately never done before with a review; I don't know what score I'm giving this film yet. It's not that I don't know how I feel about it, I know the range it falls in but I'm using this review as a way of helping myself properly unpack what I've just seen. The story is of a family who are grieving. The grandmother of the family recently died and everyone is trying to process that. Annie (Toni Collette) compartmentalises by building miniature models yet is still haunted by visions, Peter (Alex Woolf) is working his way through teenage life but afraid of events in the past, Steve (Gabriel Byrne) is trying to hold the family together for Annie's sake but Charlie (Milly Shapiro), the youngest, misses her grandmother after all the attention she always gave her. The thing is, the family realise after this death that the family matriarch was hiding a lot from them and slowly but very definitely, these secrets ooze out like blood from a wound. One of the things I really liked about the plot is how well everything fits together when reflecting on the film. The nature of a film like this means that you're in the dark for most of the plot but when you sit and think about the little hints sown earlier, from dead goats to the legend of Heracles, everything perfectly clicks, making it genuinely quite a satisfying story to watch unfold.

One of the things that really makes this film as great as it is is the performances, all of which, without exception, are fantastic. Maybe the weakest one of Gabriel Byrne as the father as he isn't given much flashy stuff to do compared to the other characters but as the straight man, he works perfectly and his moments of emotion are perfectly pitched. Ann Dowd from The Handmaids Tale and (more importantly) The Leftovers is also here too. Her performance is interesting as without giving it away, she serves the same purpose for the audience as she does for Annie in a way that only becomes apparent later. From the trailers, you've probably worked out that Milly Shapiro as the young girl is terrifying and honestly, she really is. Something about her is just incredibly unsettling and she's definitely ruined that tongue clicking noise for me. For me though, the performances in this film are really defined best by two characters. First is Alex Woolf who I have never seen in anything before but I'm familiar with his brother from his work in John Green adaptations and I have to say, I was very impressed. He's basically a male scream queen for those familiar with that trope and watching him react to some of the more shocking developments in the film is where a lot of that dark, heavy power comes from. Deservedly getting the bulk of the praise though is Toni Collette. I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen her in much but the rollercoaster she takes the audience on with just her face is astounding. It's not too subtle yet I feel comfortable saying it's one of the strongest performances I've seen in years. Just watching the trailer will give you an idea of the unbelievable range Collette offers in this film and she's the brightest star in this infinitely black sky.

One of the reasons Hereditary stands out so much as a horror film is that it is (at least initially) quite subdued. It's not like many modern horror films that love to throw jumpscares and spooky clowns at the audience in order to see how loudly you can scream. No, it actually owes more of a debt to the horror films of the seventies. There's one that I felt it was particularly evocative of but I feel like revealing which one that is might constitute a massive spoiler. Still, if you're familiar with films like Don't Look Now or even something like the original Suspiria, in that it will drip feed nastiness and absurd events to you before building to a climax that is unexpected, shocking and all the more effective for the build it took to get there, you'll have a solid idea of what to expect here. There's also this wonderful root of tragedy that is introduced early in the film. If you don't know much about Greek tragedy, the film will explain a bit but for those who are very familiar with it (i.e. me), there's some themes that are perfectly plucked from there that will help you develop a much greater understanding of the film both thematically and in a story sense. It's not all perfect though and that maybe has something to do with the marketing. It's been proclaimed as "The scariest horror film in years" but for me, it isn't even the scariest horror film of the last year, not when the last year brought both It Comes At Night and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. They're both on the fringe of horror, sure, but they gave me a far greater sense of dread and sickening tension (literally, in the case of the latter) that Hereditary just didn't quite capture. That said, I slept awfully after this film and just because I've seen scarier films in the last year doesn't mean I can't still have dark corners ruined for me forever.

I've been really positive on Hereditary here and that's because I do think it's genuinely great but it just will not be for everyone. Hell, in my screening, I heard someone utter the phrase "Now, I've seen some bad films in my life, but..." as they walked out. If you like your horror slow build, sickening and a little more cerebral, this is right up your alley but if you thought last years It was the pinnacle of horror, this won't be for you. All that said, this is my damn review and my damn score, so I'm going to grade it based on how much I liked it and therefore slap this bad boy with an