Believe The Hype

Rating: 10/10 (3 July 2020)

This is what I was waiting for years; the critical darling, film snob fellated Horror movie that actually delivers on every bit of hype promised. Hereditary is a gripping and terrifying nightmare of a film, one I consider myself absolutely blessed to have caught in theaters. Like the best Horror films, Hereditary expertly balances the line between tragedy both epic and intimate. Even before Charlie meets her positively grotesque death (one of the most shocking and upsetting moments I've had the pleasure of witnessing on screen), just the broken and estranged dynamic of this family trying desperately to maintain warmth and love in a cruel, disempowering world is just heartbreaking. That this destined tragedy occurs right when the Graham family is trying to give themselves a second chance just makes it all the more agonizing. Having grown up in a similarly unstable and dysfunctional home to the one established here, Hereditary almost played like a worst case scenario of my teenage fears living in a house of bottled guilt and toxic narcissism on all parts. I saw much of my own family in the Grahams', myself included, and while nothing can quite capture the fears and feelings of unease having to grow in that kind of environment, I'll be damned if Ari Aster's wide-shot, utterly misanthropic fever dream doesn't come close to catching that lightning in a bottle.
Hereditary's editing is maybe the only example this decade that could give Uncut Gems a run for its money. The zoom in transitions from Annie's dollhouses into the only slightly less artificial mortal world, the dream-like cross dissolves ominously preceding new emotional lows for these tormented characters, even the extended shots (a trend I'm usually annoyed by) are always used with a true sense of purpose and intent on capturing what these characters are feeling.
The direction is so impressive that I'd argye newcomer Ari Aster essentially boosted the prestige of the entire A24 Horror brand by it. The singularly unique use of soft pastels, the wide range of lighting techniques to convey mood, this is a positively gorgeous film. As it turns out, it sounds just as impressive as it looks, the raging, thundering musical cues almost taking on a personality and character all their own, screaming aggression and demonic influence.
Toni Collette heaped great tons of praise for her performance as Annie Graham and rightly so. She manages to create a matriarch both insidiously narcissistic and heart-wrenchingly sympathetic, even disturbingly relatable. That being said, Alex Wolff's performance as Peter Graham was woefully underrated. The fact people have the gall to call his raw, gritty, deeply unsightly crying "funny" really frustrates me. Frankly, he didn't get hate because his crying was unconvincing. He got hate because his performance was realistic and passionate on a downright uncomfortable level.
While we're on the subject of undeserved criticism, I don't find anything "funny" about the last 15 minutes either. If anything, the ghastly, hideously violent proceedings of the ending were the only way to end a film this operatic and grand in scale. This is a story of gods and demons more than it is one of human beings, and those entities want to show Peter all their terrible wonders before they finally take what they want. The way a possessed Annie looks at Peter, amused and entertained at his horror, suggests a sadistic playfulness that's positively blood-curdling.
Hereditary is everything that A24 Horror should aspire to be, the gold standard by which I measure all of their genre features. Terrifying, emotional and filled with beating pathos, it's a film that has more than earned its treasured place in the hearts of millennial Horror fans.