Creepy Images Are Never Enough On Their Own

Rating: 3/10 (10 June 2018)

One thing I've learned about horror/suspense flicks over the years is that creepy images alone are not enough to base the entire experience around. Sure, you can load a film with jump-scares and grisly images, but if there isn't an interesting or coherent plot to back it up, the entire experience will be transient (at best) and utterly forgettable (at worst). Unfortunately, the latter is very close to my feelings about "Hereditary".
For a basic plot summary, this film begins with a family that is reeling from the death of the grandmother matriarch. Mother Annie (Toni Collette) doesn't quite know how to process her emotions, husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) just seems distant, while siblings Charlie (Milly Shapiro) & Peter (Alex Wolff) start displaying signs of odd behavior. When another tragedy rocks the family, the oddness quotient increases, leading Annie to take drastic measures to get to the bottom of what is actually transpiring.
It's actually pretty easy for me to pinpoint exactly why I disliked this film so much: About halfway in, I knew it would "all come down to the ending", so to speak. Because not much time is devoted to really digging deep into the characters, this quickly turns into the type of movie that will be defined by what twist it can pull out of the bag before the credits roll. Sadly, that ends up being the weakest part of the film, essentially dooming the entire experience.
I don't want to spoil the film for anyone, but I will just say this: you won't expect what happens in the end, but that doesn't turn out to be a good thing. It really feels like "Hereditary" had some forward momentum, and then only was able to tack on a mumbo-jumbo sort of ending to all of it. For 3/4 of the film, it teases viewers into thinking that "all the clues are there...you just have to put them together". That is most definitely NOT the case, as the ending is instead pulled so far out of left field that it might as well not even be in the ballpark.
To be sure, there are some creepy images and jump-scares in "Hereditary", and that is the only reason I can even give it three stars here (it does put in some semblance of effort). Without a strong plot, and sunk by an even worse concept ending, though, it doesn't make a mark in any significant way.