Review of Hereditary (2018) by Mark K — 13 Jun 2018

In many ways, Hereditary reminds me of another, much better A24 film, The Witch. They're not horror films in the traditional sense, but rather tense psychological thrillers with dramatic, occasionally horror-filled moments. Even their stories about families struggling to communicate amidst supernatural terrors are similar. Hereditary just lacks the substance and genuine horror The Witch effortlessly exuded.

The film feels more like a series of continual occurrences leading down a path, not a circular, complete narrative. Drops of drama, mystery, and spookiness are scattered for a fairly intimate haunted house experience, but they never feel cohesive in relation to the whole.

At a little over two hours, it's really hard to fall into this awkward, meandering rhythm. The film runs at a slow burn pacing and is heavily reliant on audience intrigue for its plot to work. Toni Collette's lead performance anchors the film in this regard, serving as the audience stand-in across the muted insanity that transpires.

Collette is very obviously a phenomenal actress based on her raw performance alone. Unfortunately, she's let down by the writing and direction of her character. There's a lot of embellishment through yelling, fast talking, and crying meant to draw more out of her performance that just doesn't add anything authentically emotional to her character. The lack of a clear drive or conveyance of her internal motivations makes her an overall weak, confusing character to relate to.

The artificiality of the film's atmosphere is similarly frustrating. Though there are no blatant jump scares-thank goodness for that, at least-there's almost always a generic musical drone forcing the film's tense mood. And by the time the film reaches its fateful climax, the otherwise subdued horror aspects are cranked to eleven with overly done gore and a cop-out ending that had me rolling my eyes nearly out of their sockets.

It's fine to make a straightforward film, especially in the horror genre, but the film doesn't even succeed there due to its uneven sluggishness. Still, there's a prestige quality to the film's subdued, non-eventful style. In that regard, no amount of mental gymnastics could conjure up an ulterior purpose on the film's behalf. There are hints towards a story about grief, family and ancestry, maybe even mental illness, but nothing of note is ever carried through thematically beyond a casual mention-it's pretentious, a word I always hate to use.

At the very least, I will say Hereditary is visually interesting. There's nothing particularly remarkable about the shot work, but it does toy with some neat visuals calling back to the miniature sets Annie toils at-a subplot that doesn't, unfortunately, go anywhere-when she's not losing her mind.

Methodically slow and occasionally disturbing, whatever promise Hereditary may have shown is frustratingly mired by pitifully weak craft starved of any captivating or meaningful filmic value. I haven't felt so personally offended by the overwhelmingly positive critical consensus of such a hollow, pandering movie in a long time.