Review of Hereditary (2018) by Adam M — 06 Sep 2018

So I had a very strongly negative reaction to this film. The script deals with a lot of themes of grief and guilt after a loved one dies, and it deals with it in a severe and visceral way. These are emotions I've been dealing with a lot recently, and it stirred up a lot of shit for me and sent me into a horrible depresed cycle for the rest of the day.

So take anything I say about this movie with a grain of salt, because I was definitely not in the right headspace when I saw it. That being said, the cast is great, especially Toni Collette. I'm glad to see her getting a lot of recognition for this role, because she is brilliantly expressive in this role.

The movie is gripping for most of it's runtime, the imagery in the movie is so haunting. I love a movie that makes me constantly scan the background to see if I notice anything there. Ari Aster's direction is just fantastic and I'm very excited to see where he goes next.

The script however, is an incredibly mixed bag. It builds a compelling mystery that it completely ruins by the end. The plot of this film goes so insanely off the rails that it stops being this quiet intimate family focused feature, and turns into a weird cult story that feels so completely out of place.

It's a twist that doesn't feel revelatory at all, it just feels like the compulsion to a different film. Puts a damper on the whole rest of the work.