Gorgeous, horrific and tragic

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2018)

I've become obsessed with this film. I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks after having seen it. I find it hard to talk about or pinpoint, as there are so many levels to explore in its narrative and theme.
The core of this movie is the passed down trauma, pain and illness that we receive from our parents. Hereditary seems to suggest that we can't control anything in our own lives; as if something or someone else is in control of our fate, whether that be a genetic code, our social environment or... something else. Hereditary takes this idea and does what the horror genre does best; it incarnates it into a tangible monster that aims to destroy us and everyone we hold dear.
As I watched this movie I was having one of the most intense cinema experiences of my life. I was clinging to my chair, shaking in my seat, gasping for air. Hereditary is not a slow, cold, silent horror movie. It's loud, it's banging, it's punching your gut repeatedly. It's graphic and raw and it doesn't flinch from the grittiest of emotions in the human spectrum. This makes the scares all the more effective, because you're overwhelmed with empathy for the characters. And as the movie was nearing its climax and I was holding on for dear life, I seem to hear the audience in the room chuckling. I could hear their exasperation as the credits rolled. That may be your reaction too, but I'd like to think that has to do with expectations going into it. more than the actual quality of the film. I don't think you should be expecting the scariest horror movie ever made.

So let's talk about the infamous ending, which seems to split audiences down the middle. Without giving anything away, I belive it to be one of the most tragically beautiful depicitions of fate and hereditary ailment ever put to screen. I especially encourage you to look at the framing of the last shot of the movie, compare it to the very first opening image, and from there I hope you can understand the choices Aster made. The following weeks after having seen Hereditary I was unbelievably frustrated. Everywhere on the internet I tried to read reviews and analyses of the film and its ending, but everyone seemed to take it so literally. If you're going into the movie completely unknowing, I'd advise you to feel the ending, experience the ending, instead of understanding it as some kind of realistic depiction. For what is film but a tool to concretize and manifest abstract concepts into gorgeous, tragic spectacles.