Review of Hereditary (2018) by Maureen R — 25 Jun 2018

This movie would have greatly benefited from an editor. They needed to take a machete to the first half and cut about 30 minutes from it. Then cut the last 5-10 minutes out (more on that later).

Now, if the Oscars were at all legitimate and not pandering, then Toni Collette would be in the running for Best Actress from this performance. She was so scary to watch as she loses it at the dinner table and convinces her family to do a séance in the middle night, in the midst of what appears to be psychotic break. I mean, she was fantastic. She played mania terrifyingly.

The family. Okay, the family was weird. At first I thought Steve was Annie's husband. But he wasn't really acting like a husband, so I thought maybe they were siblings. But, Steve didn't act like a son whose mother just died either, so there I was just confused. When they got in bed together I was hoping they weren't siblings - I mean, I knew they were supposed to be husband and wife. However, since he never treated her the way a husband treats a wife, I never bought into that relationship. To add to the confusion, their son was played by Alex Wolff. Wolff did a fantastic job and really shone (shined? shone) in Hereditary as well. But he looks to be of, I'm guessing, Indian descent. That was a point in favor of the theory, before they got in bed together, that Annie and Steve were siblings. They're not and, we're told later, Wolff is their biological son. Clearly the laws of biology are not at work in this movie. But I'll let that slide as, if the movie had defined everyone's relationships properly from the get-go, you would have just rolled your eyes and thought "Yeah, right", but you wouldn't have spent the first 20 minutes in your head trying to define who all these people are to each other. Editor's fault, not casting director's fault. And probably director's fault in regards to Steve not acting like a husband.

The ending. Oh the humanity, the ending. You had your audience pretty well scared. No one was screaming, but everyone was deadly quiet. There were some gasps and you could feel the tension in the air. (I had the good fortune of choosing a seat near the back that just happened to be under the speakers. The surround sound was horrifyingly scary in that spot. Some of the noises sounded like they were right over your shoulder.) Anyway, you have your audience right where you want them, so what do you do? Definitely hang a lot of dong. Yep, you read that right. I'm pretty sure this is where the movie gets its R rating, from the last 5-10 minutes. (Probably 5, but felt like 10.) People in my theater laughed out loud at the ending. And deservedly so. It was laughable. I'm not talking I'm-so-scared-so-I'm-going-to-chuckle-nervously, no I'm talking full-on-I-believe-the-ridiculousness-of-what-I-just-saw-belly-laughs. And it wasn't necessary. They could have ended the movie before that with no extra anything.

See this movie, in all its dong-hanging glory, at your house. Because Toni Collette really does deserve an Oscar. Or at least an Oscar-nom, it's early yet. Honestly, she'd probably get that little golden man if the Oscars weren't the joke that they are. Maybe someone tech-savvy will give us the fan edit where they cut out half of the first half and the last 5 minutes. Anyone? Anyone?