Hereditary (2018)

[baumer]

Ok. If you can watch it seem like that and actually accept it as being logical and realistic and not just complete buffoonery then you and I obviously have different ways of watching movies. I respect that you liked the film and you got a lot more out of it than I did and now I can see why.

[baumer]

Hi Mom. Have a great day at work. Oh by the way here's the head of your daughter in the driveway. I didn't call the cops or anything I just brought the body at home so you can Discover it and deal with it.

[Jake Gittes]

3 minutes ago, baumer said:

Hi Mom. Have a great day at work. Oh by the way here's the head of your daughter in the driveway. I didn't call the cops or anything I just brought the body at home so you can Discover it and deal with it.

The head stayed at the site of the accident Mr. I Watched More Horror Movies Than Anyone On This Site.

 

5 minutes ago, baumer said:

Ok. If you can watch it seem like that and actually accept it as being logical and realistic and not just complete buffoonery then you and I obviously have different ways of watching movies. I respect that you liked the film and you got a lot more out of it than I did and now I can see why.

It is logical and realistic. Again, he's a stoned immature teenager whose little sister just died in a horrific accident partially because of him. He is NOT prepared for the weight of that shit. He is NOT gonna behave like a calm, rational human being. Do you realize just what kind of an effect something like that can have on your mental state? It'd fuck you up for the rest of your life. It's almost as if the movie communicates that to you when it spends a full minute or two on a close-up of his face as he is very obviously failing to deal with what just happened.

[baumer]

Ok then. 

[La Binoche]

The movie does a poor job of communicating what @Jake Gittes is saying to the audience. It's not so much what he does that's the problem. It's the family's lack of/delayed response to it. 

[Barnack]

5 hours ago, baumer said:

Did I miss something or did nobody have a problem with the death of Peter sister? I mean the guy is driving a car his sister sticks her head out the window per head get removed from her body and then he casually goes home and leaves the head of his sister in his driveway so that his mom can discoved the next day?

The head was not in the driveway it was clearly on the site of the accident no ?

 

Human like when possible to not address what they dislike (study clearly show for example humans in general will not buy and if it is free and given to them to not use statistic about the best hospital for a dangerous intervention, they do not like to think about it). It is perfectly natural to not want to look, to not acknowledge what happened because of the amount of guilt, she got an allergic reaction because of him making her eat cake without thinking about her allergy and than how he drived the car, being stone during the car accident not helping.

 

If you thought he took the head with him and put in the driveway just to shook is mom, then sure it is normal to think that it is over the top non sense, but that is not what happened at all. Same as for a casual drive, he was obviously petrified and not able to sleep.

Edited June 10, 2018 by Barnack

[Barnack]

9 minutes ago, La Binoche said:

family's lack of/delayed response to it.

The family goes in immediate response and screaming the very second they see the body in the car no ?

[La Binoche]

39 minutes ago, Barnack said:

The family goes in immediate response and screaming the very second they see the body in the car no ?

I didn't mean response to the girl's death. I meant response to the fact that he left her headless corpse in the car and went to sleep. Then again, the mom was an idiot for forcing her to attend the party and sending her out without an epipen. And the girl was an idiot for grabbing food froms strangers without asking what's in it. Anyone with such severe food allergies would be much more cautious. The whole thing was contrived and poorly plotted. Unless the supernatural played a hand in her death, but if that's the case, then that was poorly plotted too. 

Edited June 10, 2018 by La Binoche

[baumer]

Sorry @Jake Gittes.  I mean no disrespect.  I'm glad you liked it.....different horror films affect us in different ways.  You got a lot out of this one, I didn't and that's fine.  I guess I prefer my horror to be a little different.  But all good.

[Ethan Hunt]

4 hours ago, baumer said:

This is a question for all of you who loved it. Did I miss something or did nobody have a problem with the death of Peter sister? I mean the guy is driving a car his sister sticks her head out the window per head get removed from her body and then he casually goes home and leaves the head of his sister in his driveway so that his mom can discoved the next day? And nobody finds this odd or curious? Nobody said s*** to Peter about this. They just go to the funeral and then the first time anything is ever said is at the dinner table when she explodes. That had to be one of the laziest parts of the movie.

It's the best scene in the movie 

[Ethan Hunt]

4 hours ago, baumer said:

Hi Mom. Have a great day at work. Oh by the way here's the head of your daughter in the driveway. I didn't call the cops or anything I just brought the body at home so you can Discover it and deal with it.

the head wasn't in the driveway. It was on the side of the road where the accident happened

[baumer]

3 hours ago, Ethan Hunt said:

the head wasn't in the driveway. It was on the side of the road where the accident happened

 

I guess I didn't catch that since I was so zoned out by his stupidity.

[The Panda]

Still trying to process this, but I’ll say I liked it and screw my audience for booing, continually squeezing wrappers and making popping sounds throughout the movie thinking they’re clever (and I’m meaning their popping sounds, not the movie’s)

[Barnack]

10 minutes ago, baumer said:

 

I guess I didn't catch that since I was so zoned out by his stupidity.

I think that was the way the editing was made (you see the head right after the scream of the mother start if I remember correctly) you need to see the visual clue (I think you see either the road or the post responsible of the accident) to know it is at the crash scene.

[baumer]

 

I didn't care for the film at all, but to start off, here are some: This film is very nicely shot. The lighting is perfect and for about 15 minutes the director does a good job of ratcheting up a somewhat believable tension. The cinematography is great. The acting is just OK in the aggregate - Collette is very good, but I don't even see why Gabriel Byrne signed up for this. The kids have the difficult job of making otherwise ridiculous and totally unbelievable scenarios and behaviors seem as though they might be possible. 

Now to the negatives (SPOILERS AHEAD): People simply do not behave in the ways that are depicted in this movie. 

You don't send a 10 year old (I know she was 13 or 14 during filming, but she doesn't look it at all) to a high school party with a senior. A high school senior who plans on smoking some dube doesn't take his 10 year old sister along at his mom's bizarre request without an argument. Further, you don't do that - even if you're grieving-but-not-grieving over your recently departed mother - when the girl suffers from a severe nut allergy and you don't do it without sending an Epi Pen along with your son. 

People who just decapitated their sibling in an auto accident don't simply drive home, go to bed, and leave a human head on the ground (much less your own sister's) then wait for their parents to discover the headless body in one of the family's two Volvos the next morning - presumably after bleeding out in the back seat. Additionally, when this kind of thing happens, the cops tend to get involved, In this movie, however, that's exactly what happens and no police, no cleanup and they're driving the car in the very next scene.

When your son, who has weeks or days earlier killed your daughter, resumes going to school almost immediately, without therapy or counseling, has a seizure and bashes his own face in on the desk, you don't load his lifeless body into the same Volvo, drive him home, and deposit him into his bed - still unconscious - without any kind of medical consultation or observation at all. Laughably ridiculous. 

The reaction of the family to the mother's dalliances into the world of seances and such is just not believable. I don't know how else to say it.  And when one of the ways to advance the plot is when the mother explains to her new friend that she one day tried to kill her son by dousing him in lighter fluid, for my money that weakens the story.  It's one scene (and there are many) that is just weak.

And the problem with all of the above is that what little plot there is absolutely requires the audience to suspend disbelief in the very essence of human nature and behavior and accept without any question that these kinds of things are likely or possible.

In addition, the whole convoluted idea is just ridiculous and unnecessary. So the evil, manipulative matriarch wanted to get a suitable male host for her demon lover, but in the process screws up several attempts over a generation, and puts him into a little girl's body instead - meaning that she has to be killed and then he can possess the boy. OMG..SMH...WOW

Finally there's the underlying conceit to the way the whole picture was made. When you have to rely on an unnerving soundtrack to create a mood in a movie like this, you're not doing it right. In any case, it didn't work. At no point was anyone in the audience frightened or unnerved and I heard several laughs and scoffs during moments that apparently were supposed to be scary or meaningful. 

I suppose I should have seen this sophistry coming.  The director actually made the ridiculous claim that he views "The Shining" as a comedy movie - and that's it's more effective as such than it is a horror movie. The guy is clearly delusional and making movies only for himself and his industry/film school buddies. 

 

The end of the movie is so silly, so out of left field that you just leave without even knowing what to say.  Peter is being chased by his mom, presumably to kill him, then she levitates, slices off her own head with piano wire or something, then he runs out to the tree house, sees naked men in a circle, and mom's creepy seance friend calls Peter the king of Hell and now he will rule the world, or something.  

 

This is not my kind of horror.  

Avoid. I'm not kidding - wait for it to hit Netflix. There are better ways to spend 2 hours.

 

3/10

[JohnnyGossamer]

Respect your complaints. Movie established that Collette isn't a great mom. Far from it. Sees her daughter acting very strangely - due to the influence of light that has her wander to see a vision of her grandmother sitting in a burning field - and that results in her forcing her on her brother to go to the party. Assume, given what her son said, she thought there would be kids her age there too. Yes, foolish for a mom to assume that but, again, she's established already a somewhat selfish, apathetic mother. Wanted her out of the house and doing something "normal" kids do. And, to her, this was an easy way to foist her on her son so she didn't have to deal with watching her.

 

The son's so bent on seeing the girl he likes and totally spaced out due to toking himself into oblivion that he just takes her. She eats the cake because the demon is already present in her and has been since a very young age given her grandmother's influence on her upbringing. Guides her to do it I assume. 

 

Most of the mistakes made by the family outside of Charlie who's already somewhat possessed - likely more than somewhat due to her sketches, severing of dead birds heads, sleeping in the bitter cold of her tree house, etc. - are due to them being a highly dysfunctional family. Highly apathetic toward one another. At times, straight up spiteful of one another's existence in the case of the mother and son. The notion is the mother, daughter and son have various onset mental illness that was passed down genetically from the grandmother. Or, in the supernatural sense, imposed on them directly from the grandmother to serve the benefit of her and her cult's greater goal of resurrecting Paimon.

 

Outside of the father, who's not really of any interest to the grandmother, all of the Graham's are warped mentally. And, the father too is ineffectual. Doesn't take much of role and cowers to the rule of his wife whether he agrees or not... At least, he does so until it's far too late.

Edited June 10, 2018 by JohnnyGossamer

[Ethan Hunt]

I was under the impression some notable time had passed before the next stuff we see after they discover Charlie's death

[JohnnyGossamer]

28 minutes ago, Ethan Hunt said:

I was under the impression some notable time had passed before the next stuff we see after they discover Charlie's death

So was I.

[The Panda]

I really enjoyed this movie.  It gives a continual sense of dread, and it plays with a different kind of psychological fear, the fear that comes from guilt.  

 

I saw that as one as one of the primary themes from the movie.  Collete’s character feels a sense of guilt, she blames herself for how her daughter turned out by letting the grandma see her.  She feels guilt for the animosity she had for Peter, and the way she had treated him.  She feels guilt for the death of her daughter.  She feels guilty for the occult going after Peter.  I reckon at the end she feels guilty for the husband dying.  Slowly this guilt just continues to build, as she gradually goes more insane, and it feeds into her fear.  

 

You see the same thing happen to Peter, who’s guilt continually builds to the point where he buys into the mystical stuff (while the dad never seems to buy into it), and it continually builds, with it climaxing at literally him being dragged to hell.

 

Through all of this guilt the haracters blame each other, avoid responsibility, and you see how trauma and grief tears a family apart. 

 

Im not sure how this ties into the hereditary theme, of how things pass on within a family.  Maybe it’s supposed to be separate but I think it’s supposed to tie into this theme of guilt, trauma and grief.

 

Logistically, my interpretation was that the bulk of the supernatural stuff was manifested in the minds of the characters.  The only exception is I think the occult characters killed Collete, dug up the grandma and placed her in the attic (maybe Colette played a role as well) and I don’t think Peter is necessarily possessed at the end (I think the character simply believes he is), so when he is crowned eighth king of hell he is in a way accepting the blame and consequences from his guilt.

 

The film as a whole is highly effective in the way it’s made, and I fully understand the Oscar push for Collette now, she is phenomenal in this movie.  Aster proves himself as a master of mood setting and really setting a foreboding scene of dread that seeps into you.

[AniNate]

I mostly dug this. Has a great atmosphere and some truly horrific imagery. But ultimately it has the same problem a lot of recent horror films do in struggling to have a point. Whatever ideas Aster may have had on his mind, they're too obtuse and ambiguous on screen to actually reach the audience. It's a film that's mostly enjoyable as a simple mood piece.