Family horror at its best

Rating: 10/10 (28 December 2018)

Something I've found myself asking over the years is: what's passed down to us from our parents and their parents? What unlucky numbers did we inherit, which bad gene or nasty outlook did we have no choice but to accept from those who came before us? "Hereditary," Ari Aster's first full feature length takes that question and delivers one of the most disturbing answers through a highly stylised, tightly created descent into madness.
Annie has lost her mother to, what sounds like, ill mental health. The grief of the loss, the blame she feels, and the pressure of keeping herself together for her family's sake are causing her severe stress. What begins as a slow burn family drama that sees her despondent son, Peter, turn to drugs for comfort and her daughter, Charlie, to obscenely isolating acts of art, takes a brutal curve ball and from that moment begins to unravel every member of the family.
Horror works at its best when you don't see it coming, and "Hereditary" works hard to keep you in the dark until the final act without losing you to confusion or boredom. It does this by offering up the flawed and human family going through a traumatic loss. Annie and her brood are relatable in their desire to work through the issues, all while their worlds collapse around them. The tones and themes explored are all troubling and difficult to approach, but Aster and the cast work so well to keep it all together from start to finish.
Before the acts of gore and violence begin, the film works well to create an uneasy filter to see the family through. As Annie, Toni Collette looks like she's barely together from the very start, so to see her bad parenting and her own husband's suspicions of her actions doesn't ever feel improbable. The use of close ups and quick cuts gives a palpable sense of terror that builds throughout endless scenes of school hallways, entrance halls, a tree house and Annie's workshop. Everyone's grief and despair adds on and on into every scene and bad decisions are not hard to understand.
The light in it all is Joanie, a friendly face who offers Annie a listening ear and the knowledge to contact the dead in search of answers. Ann Dowd is perfect as the grieving homebody, nurturing, if a little needy and imposing. Contrast her light scenes with the family dinners, or Annie's inability to articulate at all with Peter, Charlie or her husband, Stephen. There may not be villains within the family, but they're all far too damaged to support each other when it's needed.
"Hereditary" really pays off all its meticulous efforts to twist the screws. By the time the horrors are coming out of the shadows and blood is flowing, it feels mightily cathartic, yet still deeply harrowing thanks to so much care put into developing the suffering family. The final tableau of horrors, juxtaposed with the caring voices and joyous score is one that could remain spoken about in horror circles for years.
10/10