Phenomenal

Rating: 10/10 (25 September 2018)

A good horror movie isn't supposed to be fun. It's meant to make the audience confront unpleasant concepts and emotions. Anything else isn't horror but a subgenre of fantasy, possibly with horror elements.
In this regard Hereditary stands as a horror movie solid enough to withstand the destruction of the Earth, alongside such classics as Cronenberg's "The Fly".
A family collapses under the pressure of losing a family member in a fashion that is both realistic and entirely hideous. To those of us that have lived through similiar situations this is a heavy, nasty subject and to me at least this movie feels relatable in its dialogues and the emotions the characters go through. I can now point to this movie whenever I have to explain what it was like living in a family that's not sliding so much as cascading, brutally, down a downwards spiral, chipping and splintering all the way down.
Supernatural elements are then added.
Both the supernatural elements as well the more fleshy gore are handled with solid pacing, timing and visual flare. Like the rest of the movie it all looks fantastic; effects used are mostly practical and look highly excellent, the set-design is great, the miniatures are top notch, first rate, all of it.
This movie may not be for everyone, for one thing a lot of people don't want or need this gloomy sort of material, especially when they're watching a movie.
Other people just aren't adults.
10/10.