A Cursed and Possessed Family

Rating: Null/10 (7 September 2018)

In the bonus track of the DVD of "Hereditary," the writer-director Ari Aster described the film as both a personal and a horror film experience. But he also indicated that his goal was for "a family drama first."
Indeed, the strength of the film was in the painful dialogue among the family members, especially that of the mother Annie and her son Peter. Aster has an ability to write intense and biting dialogue that recalls the tragic implications of the work of Eugene O'Neill, especially his masterpiece "Long Day's Journey Into Night."
On the other hand, the film falls apart in the transition from naturalistic sounding family fighting and the techniques of the horror film. Aster's favorite films that inspired him were "Carrie" and "The Thief, the Cook, the Wife, and Her Lover." When the trajectory of the film moved out of the realistic and into the macabre, it actually lost its edge.
The film begins with an obituary followed by a funeral, and the ending turns into a bizarre ritual that moved away from the personal family drama. The characters were well conceived with an especially intriguing secondary role in the complex figure of Joanie. But "Hereditary" never truly shed shed light on a tortured family, as the filmmaker recycled techniques from standard horror films. By the end, viewers must ask themselves whether they genuinely cared about this tortured family.