Hereditary

Post 2010s, the horror cinema pool has been severely contaminated by heck loads of garbage. By catering to false jump scares, mindless twists, horrible clichés and terrible casting, directors have stripped the exciting genre off its core roots to become nothing more than just a gimmicky circus ride for mainstream audiences seeking cheap thrills and adrenaline shakes. Once in a while, arrives a filmmaker to cleanse and purify the holy genre, rekindling hopes for ardent moviegoers who respect the art form. In 2018, the job's been done by Ari Aster with his exceptional product, Hereditary.

When a horror show experiments, the common reason why mainstream audiences leave the screening halls disappointed is because the film didn't deliver its genre promise, namely extreme scariness and supernatural elements. Indie arthouse features usually eradicate these usual tropes to go in different routes for refreshing experiences. Unfortunately, many have only met commercial failures rather than expected successes due to the aforementioned reasons. Maybe for the first time ever since The Sixth Sense and The Exorcist, we're here to witness a perfect marriage of balance once again through Hereditary.

The film tells the story of the Graham's family with a secret history of problems. We're introduced to Annie (Toni Collette) who has had an unclear difficult past with her now deceased mother. Charlie (Milly Shapiro) is Annie's abnormal daughter. She constantly needs attention due to her food allergies, but beyond that, there's something else off about her. Her habits and actions such as cutting a dead bird's head for collection suggested there's more hidden here for our discovery. Peter (Alex Wolff) is Annie's elder son who seems like a regular timid teenager and Steve (Gabriel Byrne) is the dad who takes care of this unit of four. With a slow and steady narrative progress, the writer-director triumphantly percolated us into the universe of these individuals, solidly built their character traits by actions and glued us to our seats to watch what's gonna unfold next! Because something isn't right. There's a whole lot of mystery sneaking around here!

Through effective methods such as funeral speech to unknown crowd, therapy session sharing, sticky notes and sign board, exposition plus inner thoughts have been unconsciously delivered to us. We really begin to feel pity towards Annie, as she has seen so much and suffered quite a bit due to her mother. She has tried hard to push her mother away from her own kids. More than illness, there's something else Annie has been trying to protect her kids from. And as we learn in the next scene, Charlie has been the grandma's favorite, who now seems traumatized and out of clue following the latter's demise. Annie in all her efforts, tries to force Charlie into hanging out with others and move on. Start your clock from here as this is where the movie takes charge to haunt you for life!

To let the cat out of the bag, Hereditary is essentially a spiritual cult's attempt to transfer Paimon; the demon they worship from a female's body to a vulnerable male's. In this scheme, a family has been trapped without them having the knowledge that they're part of this elaborate network of stratagem. While the resolution may put off certain audiences, it's important to understand that this was what the story has been leading towards from the very beginning. For horror theater visitors who need to pack some scares back home, sequences such as Annie chasing her son across the hallway and knocking her head hard on the attic's entrance, ant swarm body, naked demon lurking behind, person burning life, body at attic, wall-creeping entity, open séance session, Peter's possession and strangling were meant for you!

Setting all these supernatural exhilaration aside, at the heart of this motion picture, it's entirely about the relationship between these characters plus how trauma, remorse, grief, loss, misunderstandings and guilt can be dauntingly haunting! This family's already drenched in tragedy, and the sole way from hereon was unfortunately south. The story escalated and escalated gradually into points of no return. The moment you learn that all these proceedings were part of the cult's planning alike the miniature models Annie's been constructing, you couldn't feel more sorry for these characters. The rift between Annie and her son Peter was full of tension particularly. Dinner table argument and Annie coercing her remaining family members to be involved in the spirit summoning procession were the highlights! Annie's decision to sacrifice herself so that her son's life could be spared was extremely emotional! An arc has been achieved, but do you know what's the saddest part? Peter didn't get to know how much his mum loved him, ever.

Ari Aster is a screenwriter and film director who clearly knows what he's doing. Let's talk about the former aspect first. Rightfully, he treated scenes like mangoes. Only when it's ripe, he gave it to you, because that's when the full potential of the scene's impact can be unleashed! A prominent example would be the disastrous accident that costed Charlie! As soon as it happened, if it was any other mediocre writers, the outcome of the mishap would have been shown immediately. But not here it wasn't. It's alike Ari knows the question in our minds, but abandons us purposely to allow us to soak ourselves in the thought for some time. Only when we heard Annie's powerfully upsetting scream, we saw what was it for! That's how you write scenes, ladies and gentlemen! The screenplay moved from one minute to another, supplying all necessary information via soft notes of foreshadowing for us to piece the story together! Sleepwalking, Charlie's allergy, cult symbol, simultaneous fire on book and arm, drawing book as communication medium and Annie lighting herself in fire revelation were some of the plants that helped pay off big time when you come to know why it existed in the first place! Not to forget, one must applaud the simple dialogues and subtle comedic tone as well.

As a director, Ari Aster has extracted the very living soul out of this movie! The cinematography was stellar! It lingered on characters, conveying their thoughts and shock, causing the same effect on us as we're waiting for unanswered dramatic or plot questions! Because we have to understand, tension and thrills are pressures. And the way he has utilized Colin Stetson's music to transmit chills down your spine by slowly cooking the tensions and thrills from scratch alongside the crawling camerawork was technical mastery! Speaking of technical mastery, the lighting here toyed with your eyes, and eventually your mind! There were many background sightings placed in barely visible mode! These delivered great quality scares and chokes! Sleepless nights ahead, people!

The absolutely amazing sound design deserves all the accolades in the world! Every little sound, especially Charlie's tongue-click were truly terrifying! Ari has employed this department to facilitate him in suggesting things instead of showing it, with utmost effectiveness. Annie's body falling down after the neck-slice has been completed was an instance. Charlie's half-rotten head infested with ants was an evocative prosthetics piece! White light for spirits' movement, wind to flip pages, mirror reflection, mechanically controlled chalk, editing transition from miniature set to real incident and head to ball conversion were minimalistic. Before ending this writeup, it's crucial to address that Toni Collette has provided one of the best acting performances in 2018!