Supernatural melodrama has you thinking way after the ending

Rating: 8/10 (11 June 2018)

This is not a scary film.
It is a dreadful film in the full sense of the word. You are more disturbed and on edge hours after the film has ended then while watching (Ok until the third act)
This is because at first viewing it is not entirely clear what you just watched. Then you put the puzzle pieces together just like Annie building one of her dioramas. When the scales fall from your eyes and the enormity of the evil - real lust for power - at the cost of all, that you really see what just happened.
This is a supernatural melodrama and both ends of the rope burn ever so slowly but with extreme intensity.
Aster has made as assured debut as you can as both writer and director. This is no pastiche as he charts an extremely particular vision. Aster makes the house, the lighting, the camera - malevolent bystanders to the growing comprehension of horror. Think about how many horror films you see where you actually don't care who gets killed or not. This is the antithesis of that.
How is this a cast for your first film - Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne and Ann Dowd..and they are stood up by the incredible children. The haunting debutante Milly Shapiro and the star in waiting Alex Wolff.
The real horror of Hereditary is that you could remove all the supernatural content and it would still be extremely disturbing.