Hereditary

Dir: Ari Aster

2018

*****

There have been a few decent horror films made in the late 2000s and early 2010’s but by and large, the bad ones make the okay ones look better than they really are. The genre is awash of terrible releases, more so than any other genre, other than perhaps Christmas movies. In some respects I thought 2011’s The Cabin in the Woods was the horror film to end all horror films but sadly I was wrong. Not that cabin in the Woods was scary mind, it is just that it made light of bad horror films and horror clichés. The clichés continued however, until 2017’s Get Out led the way for a new type of horror. 2018’s A Quiet Place added an interesting element to the genre and it looked as if the industry was beginning to up its game. The problem however, is that as good and unique as these films are, they’re still not scary enough. An idea haunts far more than a jump scene ever does and this is often forgotten. I have found films such as Under The Skin, Bone Tomahawk and Green Room more frightening than films more closely regarded as horrors over the last few years. The genre needed something else, something a bit special but not completely nontraditional. It needed Hereditary. It might be the best horror film since The Shining. Horror films come in all shapes and sizes, I like comedy horror and ones with old-school special effects personally, but managing genuine terror is difficult. Hereditary is genuinely terrifying. Director Ari Aster, who at this point has only made short films, could be the next Stanley Kubrick. Aster, who has specifically sited films such as Rosemary's Baby, Cries and Whispers, Don't Look Now, Carrie, Ordinary People and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover as influences, stated that he didn’t see the film as a horror, but rather  "a tragedy that curdles into a nightmare”. Nightmare is right. I think what we consider horror these days is a matter of opinion, personally I find ideas and suggestions often far more effective than masked men jumping out of closets but I definitely consider Hereditary a horror, one of the highest quality. The film is cinematic and atmospheric. The score by Colin Stetson is considered a character in itself and is treated as such by Aster, who approached Stetson before anyone else. Effective horror films need a balance of several components, such as creepiness, suspense, intrigue, dread, surprise and originality – Hereditary has all of these. It never relies on cheap jump scenes and thankfully Aster kept all the special effects simple and old school. It is a relief to see such a creative horror film without it using CGI. The film revolves around miniature-model artist Annie Graham (Toni Collette) who lives with her husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), their 16-year-old son Peter (Alex Wolff), and their 13-year-old daughter, Charlie (Milly Shapiro). At the funeral of her secretive mother, Ellen, Annie delivers a eulogy explaining their fraught relationship that was full of secrecy. A few days later, Steve is informed that Ellen's grave has been desecrated, while Annie thinks she sees an apparition of Ellen in her workshop. At a support group for bereaved, Annie reveals that the rest of her family suffered from mental illness that resulted in their deaths. Later that week, Peter lies that he is going to a school event when in fact he is going to a party. Annie forces him to take Charlie with him, which he does even though neither he or Charlie want her to. While socialising at the party, Peter leaves his sister to take drugs with a girl he likes. Unsupervised, Charlie eats some chocolate cake containing nuts, which she is allergic to, and falls into an angioedema attack. Peter drives her to a hospital in panic, while Charlie leans out of the window for air. Suddenly, Peter swerves to avoid a dead animal and Charlie is decapitated by a telephone pole. The family grieves following Charlie's funeral, heightening tensions between Annie and Peter. Peter is then plagued by Charlie's presence around the house. Annie is soon befriended by a support group member, Joan. Annie tells her she used to sleepwalk, and recounts an incident in which she woke up in Peter's bedroom to find herself, Peter, and Charlie covered in paint thinner with a lit match in her hand. Joan teaches Annie to perform a séance to communicate with Charlie. Annie wakes from a nightmare and convinces her family to attempt the séance. Objects begin to move and break, terrifying Peter, and Charlie seemingly possesses Annie until Steve douses her with water. Annie suspects that Charlie's spirit has become malevolent. She throws Charlie's sketchbook into the fireplace, but her sleeve also begins to burn. She retrieves it and heads to Joan's apartment for advice, but Joan has vanished. Annie notices that Joan's welcome mat resembles her mother's craftwork. She goes through her mother's possessions and finds a photo album linking Joan to Ellen, and a book with information about a demon named Paimon, who wishes to inhabit the body of a male host. In the attic, Annie finds Ellen's decapitated body with strange symbols on the wall written in blood. At school, Peter becomes confused and slams his head against his desk, breaking his nose. Annie shows Steve her mother's body and the sketchbook. Annie begs Steve to burn the sketchbook so she can sacrifice herself to stop the haunting, but Steve assumes she has gone mad, accusing her of desecrating Ellen's grave herself. When Annie throws the book into the fireplace, Steve bursts into flames instead. Annie becomes possessed. Peter awakens to find his father's body. Annie chases him into the attic, which is decorated with cult imagery. Levitating, Annie beheads herself with a piano wire as naked coven members look on. Peter jumps out of the window. As he lies on the ground, a light enters his body and he wakes up. He follows Annie's levitating corpse into Charlie's treehouse, where Charlie's crowned, decapitated head rests atop a mannequin. Joan, other coven members and the headless corpses of his mother and grandmother bow to him. Joan swears an oath to him as Paimon, stating that he has been liberated from his female host, Charlie, and is free to rule over them. It is by far the scariest film I’ve seen in ages. The initial scare is brutal and I didn’t think the film would match it but it does. The graphic horror moments are controlled and well paced throughout the film. There really is something for every fan of the genre, except of course humour. The performances are absolutely perfect. Toni Collette, who had told her agent that she didn't want to do any more heavy, dark films and only wanted to do comedies, loved the Hereditary script so much she couldn't turn it down. I can’t think of anyone else who could have done her character justice. Gabriel Byrne is perfectly cast as the steady down to earth father and husband and Alex Wolf and Mily Shapiro are so impressive in their performances. Literally every element of the film is perfect. Toni Collette has said in interviews that Ari Aster is the most prepared director she's ever worked with. Ari goes for scares that are emotionally justified, rather than relying solely on traditional horror scare-jumps. He wrote detailed biographies and backstories for all of the characters before even writing the screenplay. Aster started building a network of potential collaborators for this film years before the project had been greenlit and he designed a 75-page shot list for the cinematography before they even had locations scouted. This is what talent looks like. In Peter's first scene at school, the words "Escaping Fate" is on the chalkboard with the teacher discussing it. This is a reference to 1978’s Halloween, where the main character discusses the same thing in class. A tribute to the king of horror John Carpenter, someone I believe Aster could be as big as.