Well made, acted and fairly unnerving, but a tough one to get your head around

Rating: 7/10 (20 June 2018)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Annie (Toni Collette) has recently lost her mother, a cold, distant woman who seemed to have something to hide. After attending a session for those struggling with loss, she reveals a long history of tragedy that has plagued her family line, only to then suffer one of the worst tragedies imaginable. After becoming friends with a lady at the sessions, Annie becomes obsessed with channelling the after-life, leading to husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) to question her sanity. But something much more creepy and sinister is at play...
Horror is a genre that's become pretty generic and production line, a less demanding modern audience drip fed an endless succession of jump scare laden, soulless pap that pretty much matches their senses. It's much rarer nowadays to get something that aims to get under the skin and psychologically unnerve you and wear you out. So, if nothing else, it's kudos to director Ari Lester, here making his feature length debut, that he has at least attempted to produce something that is unconventional and at least tries to go somewhere new. But, sadly, Hereditary is something that doesn't pull it all off swimmingly. At least, not on the first viewing.
It's certainly received loads of really great reviews, from professional film critics and other IMDb users, although there's been a fraction of that who have shared less praise-worthy ones, so it's nice not to feel like you're the one stupid one who 'just didn't get it.' What works about it is really great, as it successfully creates a genuinely unnerving, unsettling atmosphere, with it's drained camera style, and long, lingering camera lenses, that create a desperately solitary effect. Lead star Collette's performance is also amazing, as a woman whose life has been one long storybook of misery, perfectly conveying scenes of horror, grief, anguish and anger, although Byrne as her husband feels a little underdeveloped. The problem is, it all feels cobbled together in a sloppy, messy way, an already unclear and ambiguous story that ends up suffering from pacing issues as a result.
Fans of the film Don't Look Now might find appeal in this one, a film where your own imagination's conclusion of events is as accurate as what's actually happened. It has too much going for it not to work, but it's one you may have to watch twice in order to get it and really pick everything up. That's another type of film they don't make so much of these days...***