Hereditary

After the family matriarch passes away, a grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences, and begin to unravel dark secrets.

Hereditary has been on my radar for some time as part of a long list of horror films that I have had on my wishlist. I decided to watch it at home before taking myself off to the cinema to see Midsommar by the same director, Ari Aster, mainly to get a sense of what I was getting myself into.

Oh my.

So we have Annie, an artist whose abusive mother after struggling with Alzheimer’s, and because Annie did not get on with her mother at all she is finding it difficult to grieve and is a mixture of angry and fragile. This has an unhealthy impact on her family; husband Steve is a decent man trying to hold everything together, and the teenagers Charlie and Peter. All sorts of little odd things happen, then An Event takes place which changes the dynamic of the film and we move into finding out all of the dark secrets in the family, and some outside malign influences.

Then it all goes batshit crazy.

The first thing to say about this is I didn’t find it frightening. I did, however, find it disturbing and really unsettling, making me feel uneasy and frightened on behalf of several of the characters, especially Peter.

There are several gross-out moments which I found effective with a certain amount of “how is that even possible” floating around the back of my mind.

Several reviewers have references the influence of Rosemary’s Baby (a film which freaked me out when I saw it as a teenager and which I still find difficult to watch) and I think that’s a very valid comparison. I liked the feeling of dread, that sense that something is about to happen and you know it’s going to be awful but it can’t be stopped.

The last 20 minutes or so is deeply strange and veers a little close to silliness but gets away with it, entirely due to the performances of the main cast. Toni Collette as Annie is amazing; I hated and felt sorry for her all at once.

Would watch again.

Dazzling details: Hereditary was directed by Ari Aster, is 2h 7m long and rated 15 for strong threat, gory images, language and drug use.