Hereditary

Rating: 8/10 (4 July 2018)

('Hereditary' is a film about the conscious, existential suffering of perpetual mystery. We hand it down to our children, a box of secrets wrapped in a black bow, and gift them the opportunity to make sense of what their parents couldn't make sense of. When all you know is the unknowing, there is nowhere to go, it's impossible to evolve, all paths lead to more unknowns. The family tree has dark, piercing roots that spiral down into the ground, darker and darker, deeper and deeper into Hell. We never know where it begins. Who set us on the path?)
It's not often that I'm impressed by a modern horror film, but 'Hereditary' was absolutely excellent. It had the intensity and despair of Bergman or Cassavetes, with acting at that impressive level, yet it also boasted the gritty malignancy of the best 70s horror. When I was in the cinema I felt that the audience was unprepared for what they were viewing (even I was, except it was a pleasant surprise to me, since I live for bleak filmmaking), and made deeply uncomfortable because of it, expecting a typically overrated, easy-viewing CGI horror flick and many had to giggle uncomfortably at times -- especially at the ending, in some kind of transparent coping mechanism when viewing a film as suffocatingly bleak as 'Cries and Whispers', which in a sense was a horror film, because real horror lies in what we can relate to, such as sudden death and the near-insanity that comes with grief.
Both the cinematography, with its long shots and the pacing were exceptionally good and added so much depth to the experience, which is really unusual for this era; this came across as a film that was made for both existentialist Euro art house lovers and hardcore 70s horror fans, which has been attempted more and more recently, but this one got it right. There are some moments I would have excised, but if you want perfection you aren't getting it in corporate 2018. I have no idea why the marketing has to be, 'the scariest film since the Exorcist', since that's ridiculous and will only serve to unnecessarily and unfairly turn people against the film, but I suppose, 'one of the few modern horror films that genuinely isn't dogshit' doesn't sound as enticing. A near-masterpiece.