Truly shaken after seeing this.

Rating: 10/10 (27 June 2018)

To start with, I will avoid spoilers with this review. This film needs to be seen as cold as possible.
I've rarely been compelled to write a review immediately after seeing a move but 'Hereditary' has changed that. I also know that the film is going to stay with me for quite some time. This is the best horror movie I have seen for sometime and the first contemporary horror movie that has made me feel tension, fear and dread in the way that I haven't experienced before. 'Don't Look Now' and 'The Exorcist' are not comparisons but they are movies that gave me the same sense of heightened anxiety as 'Hereditary' has just achieved.
The script is excellent, paired down dialogue - sometimes very little dialogue and first explores the psychological dynamics of family dysfunction. This is absolutely right because it makes the events that follow all the more powerful. Scenes are shot as if through a window or uses the environment as a stage which cleverly ties in the 'doll house' motif in which we are observers of action.
The photography and lightening is excellent, beautiful at times and eerily effective in some moments. No jump scares, as a scene early on promises, just sustained tension in which we see something in the dark and continue to see it for a prolonged moment.
By the end of the first act, I admit to feeling slightly ill, stunned and without a clue as to where this was going next. By the start and end of the 2nd act I was able to identify some familiar horror territory but that is forgiven as by the 3rd act the tension had just been racked up to '11' and I was compelled to continue watching whilst physically wanting to leave the theatre. I loved it but I'm not so sure I can watch it again.
Quite shocked to see some reviews describe this as 'boring', 'laughable' (WTF!) and one reviewer commenting that it was terribly shot? It would be better to back up these criticisms? The DOP did a stunning job.
This movie has done it's job in genuinely unsettling. It's under my skin and making it crawl. Go and see this without expectation or spoilers and experience it. I look forward to more from this director but I wonder if I can bear it.