Review of Hereditary (2018) by Holly L — 19 Jun 2018

I was looking forward to this movie so much when I first saw a preview a few months ago - critic reviews, as we know, were outstanding. However, after it's release it was disheartening to see such low audience reviews. I decided to see it anyways, (and boy am I glad I did).

This movie is the first movie to really disturb and scare me in a decade. I only watch horror movies, and have seen the many made in the past few years - The Conjuring series, the Insidious series. Those all felt incredibly disappointing and ridiculous. Things would be going alright and very early on switch to tacky and cheap - which would continue throughout the movie.

Hereditary IS truly a masterpiece, much like The Exorcist. I have to wonder if it's because audiences have adapted to seeing horror as movies made like Insidious, and the slower pace of Hereditary seems lame due to very minimal "jump scares". The imagery in this movie is horrific, and you won't be able to unsee it. Several times throughout the film my jaw dropped and I covered my mouth - and couldn't bring my hand away! Truly, you'll feel like you need a long shower and hug once the film ends. And you won't be able to stop reading about it, discussing it, and thinking about it.

If the movie is disappointing to people because the ending takes a different route than perhaps anticipated, I disagree. Most horror movies nowadays seem to come to obvious and similar conclusions.

This film will scare you silly, and I hope sets the stage for much better thought out, visually intense horror films. I'm blown away.

Truly a masterpiece.