Review of Hereditary (2018) by Clive J — 14 Jun 2018

Check those expectations at the door. So this is about a mother who makes miniatures for a living (Toni Collette). When her mother passes, strange occurrences start to happen to her and her family. Is it all coincidental, or is there something more going on here? This is the new horror movie from the studio A24.

If you've been following the marketing for this, Hereditary is being touted as THE MOST TERRIFYING MOVIE EVER MADE, and THE BEST HORROR MOVIE SINCE THE EXORCIST. While I was intrigued, I was also skeptical.

A24 has a history of releasing trailers for horror movies that are nothing like the film they are pitched as, like The Witch or It Comes at Night for example. They're still quality films, mind you, but if you walk into something expecting one thing and getting another, you could potentially leave disappointed or even irritated.

Let me not pull any punches and tell you right off the bat: they've done it again with Hereditary. Now I was half-expecting shenanigans walking in to this, but you might not be. I will not get into any spoilers, but I will say this: the first half of this isn't even a horror movie.

It's a dark drama with some unsettling imagery and mystery tropes, sure, but it is not something I would even begin to label as horror. It isn't until a new element gets introduced around the midpoint that this even starts to tip its toe into the genre, and even then, it's not something I would be selling as the scariest movie ever made.

That said, I don't want to harp on the negatives too harshly, because this is a very well made movie. So much about this involves miniatures and there are lots of shots in this with flat angles that make you feel like you're looking into a doll house.

There's even a shot at the very beginning of this that zooms into the miniature creation and then the scene starts with real actors, and I don't even know how they were able to film that. There are surprises that you don't see coming, and the mystery of it all does keep you hooked throughout.

I did appreciate a lot about this movie, but it is not my favorite. Even though I was never bored, I will say that you do feel the length of this, and I don't think there was a good reason that this needed to exceed a two hour run time.

While it didn't bother me personally, I can see a lot of people being off put by the material itself; if the trailers set a better expectation of what you were going to get, maybe this wouldn't be sitting on a Cinemascore of D+.

Also, there is the ending itself: this goes off the rails when it is wrapping up. While it does leave an impression, I don't agree with this decision to go this route. Everything up until that point worked because of the shrouded mystery, and they chose to pretty much tell you "okay, here's everything that was actually going on" in the final ten minutes.

It just left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and I would have preferred to have a little less hand holding. Still, it's potentially worth checking out for the filmmaking alone, but go ahead and tether those expectations.