Hereditary

Rating: 4/10 (21 June 2018)

The dictionary definition of "hereditary" is: passing, or capable of passing, naturally from parent to offspring through the genes, this was advertised and hyped up as "the most terrifying film of the year", I was certainly hoping it would be, especially after seeing the unnerving A Quiet Place only two months before. Basically Annie Graham (Toni Collette) is a miniaturist artist, she lives with her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), their teenage son Peter (Alex Wolff), and their thirteen-year-old daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro). Her mother Ellen has passed away, at the funeral Annie delivers a eulogy explaining her fraught relationship with her mother, who was extremely secretive. Annie thinks she sees the ghost of Ellen in her workshop, soon after she attends a support group for those who have lost loved ones, she reveals that many of her family, including Ellen, suffered from mental illnesses. Days later, Charlie is at school not focusing on a quiz in class, a pigeon suddenly flies into a window startling the class, during break she takes a pair of scissors and cuts the head off the pigeon, taking the head with her. Meanwhile, Peter is struggling in high school and is more interested in girls and pot smoking than his classes. Later, Peter is invited to a party, he lies to Annie that it is a school event, she forces him to take Charlie with him. Charlie is allergic to nuts, during the party she eats a piece of chocolate cake, not realizing it contains nuts, she goes into anaphylactic shock, Peter is high on marijuana and attempts to rush her to hospital. On the way, Charlie opens the window and partially climbs out to get some air, when Peter swerves to avoid a dead animal in the road, Charlie is decapitated when she collides with a telephone pole, it has a symbol written in blood on it. Peter drives home in shock without informing the parents, they discover Charlie's body in the morning. The family grieves terribly, and tensions build between Annie and Peter, it seems Peter is suffering from some form of PTSD, he begins hallucinating Charlie's ghost in the house. Annie returns to the support group, she is approached by mysterious fellow member Joan (The Handmaid's Tale's Ann Dowd). Visiting Joan's apartment, Annie reveals she used to sleepwalk and recounts an incident where she woke up in Peter's bedroom, he was covered in paint thinner and she was holding matches, this is why he no longer trusts her. Joan tells Annie that she has learned to communicate with her deceased grandson through a séance, she convinces Annie to participate, showing her that the connection is real, she teaches her how to do it herself. Annie has a nightmare in which she revealed to Peter she purposely attempted to miscarry him while she was pregnant, after this she convinces her family to attempt a séance. But the séance goes wrong when a glass cabinet is smashed, and Annie is seemingly possessed by Charlie, Steve throws a glass of water on her and the possession ends. Annie suspects Charlie's spirit has become malevolent, so she throws her daughter's sketchbook into the fireplace, only for her arm to catch fire, she takes it off. Annie later goes to see Joan for advice, who is not at her apartment, so she next goes through her mother's belongings, finding a book Ellen highlighted with a section about the demon Paimon, a "king of Hell" who inhabits the bodies of vulnerable males. Annie next looks in the attic, she finds a decapitated corpse she believes to be Ellen, with a symbol written in blood, like what appeared on the telephone pole that killed Charlie. Meanwhile, Peter sees Joan calling to him across the street during lunch, he appears to become possessed during class, smashing his own head on the desk. Annie shows Steve her mother's body and the sketchbook, she begs him to burn it, he refuses and believes she has lost her mind, she throws the sketchbook onto the fire herself, only for Steve to immediately catch fire and burn to death. Annie is then seemingly possessed by Paimon, Peter awakens, finds his father's dead body, and is chased by a possessed Annie into the attic. A group of Ellen's followers confront Peter, then Annie appears in the rafters, beheading herself with wire garrotte, then many naked cult members flash up in the darkness. Unable to take anymore, Peter throws himself out of the window, he is knocked unconscious, a pulsing light appears to enter Peter's body and he wakes. Peter follows Annie's 's levitating corpse into the family tree house, where he finds Charlie's crowned, decapitated head resting atop a hand-made statue while Joan, other members of the coven, and the headless corpses of his mother and grandmother bow to him. Joan greets him as both Charlie and Paimon, declaring him as their ruler, Peter stares despondently after being crowned by Joan and the people around are worshipping him, and the final shot sees this scene in miniature model form. Also starring Christy Summerhays as Charlie's Teacher, Morgan Lund as Mr. Davis, Mallory Bechtel as Bridget and Jake Brown as Brendan. Collette is good looking despondent and scared, Byrne doesn't do as much apart from looked concerned sometimes, Wolff gets many of the memorable moments, and Shapiro is good at looking creepy. There is certainly a feeling of creepiness and some tension throughout the film, with some good scary music by Colin Stetson, but there were no real jump scares, just bizarre over-the-top moments, bloody and some just plain weird moments, I was hoping to be more thrilled, but by the end I was like "what was all that about?", I don't know why critics are giving such high praise, an average but watchable supernatural horror. Okay, in my opinion!