hereditary
DIRECTOR: ari aster (feature debut)
STARRING: toni collette, gabriel byrne, alex wolff, and milly sharpio
REVIEWER: hadassah devis
★★★
When Ellen passes away, her daughter's family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited.
​Hereditary follows a family dealing with the loss of their mother/grandma. Firstly, the mother is an artist who creates and paints miniature houses and people. If thats your job, don’t be surprised when things get creepy as f***.
It’s a horror movie, so the plot is pretty much the standard - creepy things happen, no one cares, they escalate, everyone starts to care.
However, there was a big, unexpected twist fairly early on in the piece that had the audience gasping and looking around for confirmation that what happened just happened. That ‘event’ (no spoilers here, son) puts you on edge for some creepy things you knew were had to happen.
The casting director knew what they were doing. Toni Collette was the perfect choice for the slowly-unraveling mother and carries the movie performance wise. Milly Shapiro’s lack of ‘performance’ - ie just being a subtly creepy-ass kid - made her the most spooky character. And Alex Wolff holds his own against their two strong performances, particularly towards the end of the film.
A couple of good jump scares and some definite ‘nope, no thank you’ moments, it starts out strong then falls into the trap of some horrors going slightly OTT and unfortunately it does lose some of its scariness.
★★★
Hereditary is available on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital from all good disc and digital retailers.
