Review of Hereditary (2018) by Malachi P — 04 Oct 2018

I want to preface this review with the fact that I rarely get scared by movies. Jump scares are meh for me, and I regularly watch horror and suspense for fun. Only a handful of times in my life has a movie actually effected me in any way.

That being said, for actual /days/ following my trip to the theatre to watch this movie, I felt like I was having a panic attack. I only watched the movie once, and I feel like my brain was in panic mode and forced itself to pay close attention to every detail. The plot was so mysterious and the more you contemplate the events in the movie, the more potential backstory is unraveled. It starts you off thinking that you're watching some over dramatized, "muh dissociative identity disorder" but then it pulls you into a town-wide satanic cult with bloodline rituals, human sacrifice, and plenty of recurring themes that keep you wondering how this all connects. Not going to lie, most people are going to be CONFUSED when watching this the first time, you may even straight up hate the movie (I definitely did on the ride home) but after deep reflection I've gotten more entertainment out of this movie than any other form of media I've consumed. I think the last thing that made me even jump was The Evil Dead (2013) during the basement scene where ash splits her tongue in half with a razor, and this film travels that same route of using unconventional tactics to scare the audience. How many horror/suspense movies have you seen using ants as a way to scare you? How about tongue-clicking? What about sleepwalking? These are otherwise untapped resources that this film has harnessed as nightmare fuel; and it works!