Uneasy

Rating: 7/10 (19 August 2019)

HEREDITARY
RATING: 3.7/5
They really need a sub category for these kind of so called "horror" movies because this is the same thing that happened to "mother!" Apparently, HEREDITARY was marketed as the "scariest movie ever," which it is not, by far. There is horror imagery and an uneasy feeling throughout a lot of the film, but there's never anything really scary, and I'm not just talking about the lack of a single jump scare. Guess you could just call this kind of movie "Horror Lite," where they're not really hitting you with jump scares but you're probably not gonna leave the theater feeling happy go lucky either... i guess if ghosts make you uncomfortable, you might find it scary, but that's on you, cause the film definitely ain't trying to make you jump out of your seat.
The film is pretty long too, for the amount of story you're getting, it's over 2 hours. They could have tightened up some things and maybe picked up the pace a little. Apparently, the director left 30 scenes on the cutting room floor and the original cut was 3 hours long. 1 hour cut from the film, and a lot of it still felt like setup, setup, setup, so it could then lose its mind in the 3rd Act the same way "mother!" did towards the end. The overall message of the film feels lost. If I had to guess, you could argue that the message is, you can't escape your family's history, even after they die, unless you're willing to completely let them go. Or something along those lines perhaps, but it doesn't feel earned, and that's the problem.
On the positive side, the acting is pretty solid. The family does a pretty good job of portraying their grief and dysfunction. They do it so well in fact, that for a little while i forgot that i was technically watching a horror lite film. It's like they stepped into some depressing indie film for a bit, until they were forced to come back to the horror genre. That probably wouldn't have happened if the film was paced better. The music also does a good job of accentuating the uneasiness throughout.
The more i think about the film the more it just doesn't hold up to scrutiny as a horror film, and i think that's what's hurting it the most. Hereditary falls under the horror genre but it doesn't feel like it's trying to scare you for the majority of the film, it just wants to make you feel uncomfortable, like really uncomfortable. If they were gonna cut an hour off the original cut, then it needed another two or three passes to work out all the kinks. I'm honestly curious how different the 3 hour cut is, but as it stands now, Hereditary is not a very scary movie despite the horror elements in it. Be warned though, despite it not being very scary, some of the imagery may stick with you because it is a well crafted movie. If you do decide to go see it, just know what you're getting into so you're not blindsided and disappointed by the lack of jump scares.