Hereditary

The talk of this year's Sundance festival, it's been quite loudly hailed as both intensely and uniquely frightening. Usually that kind of advertising tends to attract a sizeable "um it isn't actually that scary" kind of Hype Backlash post release (It Follows, The Witch etc.), which people really should've learned by now, but the trailer is really great, Toni Colette has been cited to serve some capital A Essie-Davis-in-The-Babadook acting, the early reviews have been outstanding and overall it just looks genuinely creative and interesting so consider me intrigued regardless.

It's set to be released in early June, the 8th, to be precise.

edited 9th Jun '18 4:23:06 PM by LE0Night

Festival darlings frequently burn me.

But this one looks interesting. I nearly got to check it out, but missed my chance...kinda wish I didn't have to wait almost half the year now.

So this is out now and the general buzz seems to be that it actually matches the hype about how frightening it is? I'm watching it next week, I'm not usually unnerved by films but at this point I'm almost a bit concerned.

It's very scary. I was actually nervous walking home in the dark after it.

OK,so what's this film about?

Shitty family members and their shittiness continuing to harass people even after they're dead.

Am I weird for the fact that I kinda hope Milly Shapiro got to keep that hideous prop of her own decomposing head? Imagine what an icebreaker that'd be at parties in ten years!

I just saw it and... eh. The acting is great and most of the movie is a slow-burn psychological thriller that is unnerving at times; heck, someone behind me in the cinema actually screamed when Annie first hears the disembodied cluck. But the payoff never comes, as in the last half hour it descends into standard horror movie demons and gore.

I adored this movie. It's one of the best theatrical horror films I've seen in a while.

Welp, color me a fan. It was genuinely scary, finely acted ... and "emotional terrorism" is not an unfair description of how well the movie exploited family dynamics. My only reservation is, I'm not sure how internally consistent the movie was with its own rules ... especially in its last act. On the other hand: I find that question tough to answer precisely because of how much it left the audience to chew on.

All in all: would watch again, but not without some kind of stress toy.

edited 23rd Jun '18 11:03:22 AM by Jhimmibhob

My whole theatre flipped out when Annie hears the cluck, too. The best part of the movie, for me, was the bit near the end where Peter wakes up in the middle of the night and the camera zooms out to reveal his barely-lit bedroom, with the outline of a levitating Annie just discernible against the pitch-black corner of the ceiling. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what I was looking at, and after I did, I didn't even register it as a scare - I just thought to myself, "Well done, movie. Well done.".

There's a couple of scenes that I personally would've made minor adjustments to:

• Annie's headless body levitating onto the treehouse looks a tad goofy. It's mostly the lateral movement giving that effect, so I'd skip straight to the final stretch where she's levitating straight up.
• The whole climax feels like a long, terrifying roller coaster drop, but Joan's final monologue brought it to a screeching halt for me. I understand why it's there (though it feels superfluous if you actually paid close attention to the plot), but it blunts the visual and musical impact of the scene quite a bit. I'd probably just have the cultists muttering "Hail Paimon" as the crown is placed on Peter's head, growing louder and louder with the music's crescendo and finally cutting to the tilt-shifted "dollhouse" shot right after it ends.

The whole thing feels like a 21st century sequel to The VVitch, with a much higher tension and overall energy level. I loved the movie, but I think I get why it didn't appeal to a lot of people. It's a very different fare from something like The Conjuring 2, which keeps the audience occupied with a steady stream of apparitions jumping out of the shadows but ultimately doesn't seek to horrify you in a lasting way. Its storyline demands close attention and some adult empathy, and some key scenes only really make sense in hindsight. I've heard some criticism on the real-life horror of a family breakdown getting overshadowed by the demon worship stuff, but I think it makes sense as a metaphor. As someone who's had to dealt with hereditary mental disorders in the family, sometimes it really does feel like your life is getting smashed to bits by supernatural forces beyond the control - and that interplay between fantasy horror and grounded, real-life fears is what makes Hereditary truly shine.

I did enjoy it, but it might have been more effective if they had kept an ambiguity over what was actually spiritual and what was due to the various mental health issues of the family. The dad was the reallest character for me, a normal guy trying to hold it together for the sake of his imploding family. The reliance on fairly typical possession tropes at the end kind of nullified any scares for me.

Real late to this but having just seen it:

Respectable, an enjoyable horror film in most regards but a little underwhelming given the buzz it got. I see someone's compared it to The Witch, which I also thought of, but it was more of a detriment because I thought that film was a lot stronger than this one. A lot of the supernatural stuff in the second half of the film was less interesting compared to the more realistic/mundane first half. By contrast, the supernatural stuff fit the context of The Witch far better, and IMO that film's story and characters were better as well. The only real standout of this film was Annie.