Hereditary Movie Review

Graham Craycraft

Hereditary is the directorial debut of Ari Aster. Hereditary is a horror movie that follows the life of a family whose children’s maternal grandmother has passed away. They cope and seem to move on quickly, but there is something buried deeper underneath the life of this grandmother. The story unfolds slow, but well. Hereditary is patient, disturbing, and altogether great. I don’t particularly like horror movies because I get scared easily, but also because I find their stories stale and brutally cliche. I did not experience the same thing from Hereditary. The story held a familiar folklore essence, but with a dramatic flare.

The characters were developed and Aster successfully captured real emotions of how these family members would react in the bizarre situations. A specific instance of a perfectly captured scene was after the first death in the movie. The scenes that spawned as a direct result were accurate of what would or could happen with these characters trying to cope. Hereditary is a study of the human condition in extreme and supernatural circumstances. Character studies are found in many of the best films such as Taxi Driver and in a way even Mad Max: Fury Road. Like Fury Road, Hereditary packs a full scope of character study into just a two hour timeframe.

My favorite part of this movie is how different it is from other horror movies. It was completely void of any jump scares or non-creative tactics. Instead, it relied wholly on story, acting, and cinematography. This movie used silence and quiet extended scenes as good as any movie could. Far shots gave a blurry distorted feeling to emulate confusion and fear, and close up shots let the audience get right up in the face of utter sadness from some of the characters. I felt as if I had lost one of my own family members just in this short span. A very difficult thing for writers to do is to establish a relationship between character and audience, but this movie nailed it.

I give Hereditary a 91/100 and I am quite excited to follow the career of this director. Seen it? Like it or hate it? Let me know why.