Makes good use of established formulas

Rating: 6/10 (18 June 2018)

"Hereditary" is a new American movie from 2018 and maybe, at least at this point, considered the defining horror film of the year. It runs for comfortably over 2 hours, which is unexpectedly long for the genre and the most known cast member here is Oscar nominee Toni Collette who of course has a history of strong horror films and this one adds further quality to her body of work in this field. Writer and director is Ari Aster and this is his very first full feature movie. Nice way to start a career if we ignore his short film works for a little moment. As for the cast, we also have Gabriel Byrne in here who was probably the one cast member that is the biggest reason to watch the film. He does not have Collette's material, probably not even Wolfe's material in terms of awards bait, but he is as quietly convincing as I hoped he would be. Now for the film itself, it was handled pretty convincingly. Some scenes stay in the head really while, for the most part, the film also works as a whole. The one scene that stayed in the head the most was of course the fatal party and everything that resulted from it as well as the chase for the teenage boy at the very end. Interestingly enough, he is at the core of my favorite scenes it seems. The very final scene with the diabolical references and the evil deity parts was not really to my liking. Maybe there the movie tried to be too much for its own good, but it seems critics disagree, so watch for yourself. Jump scares are okay as a whole, executed profoundly as everything else about the film really.
Apparitions of the old lady add their fair share too as do the parts with scene stealer Ann Dowd and her talking with spirits. But this also resulted in maybe the weakest part story-wise as seeing how scared Collette's character is after this particular scene, I just cannot believe she is all for talking to her own daughter immediately only one or two scenes later. But of course there are some flaws for a film with this running time. Taking this into account, it still went by pretty quickly and you could see the creativity and wit attached to the project. For people who love horror movies more than I do, maybe really adore them, this is close to a must-see. For everybody else who does not hate the genre, it's a good watch nonetheless I assume. There are really many strengths to it, sometimes also fairly simple aspects like the young daughter's physical looks or the many references about severed heads and even if they are pretty gross like the one with the pigeon, you just cannot look away. Other moments like the many dollhouse references did not work that well for me, but it is also all subjective here what you will like and what you won't like. Maybe these parts are exactly what some others will appreciate. So overall, there is no need to hesitate for me in what I give this movie, namely a positive recommendation. The highs were higher than how low the lows were if you know what I mean. And also the positive sides were more frequent than the negative parts in terms of the story. Shame they messed things up a bit at the end. Still go watch it, at best when it's dark outside (or inside) of course. Thumbs-up.