Hereditary (2018)

[Ethan Hunt]

The supernatural stuff is easily the worst part of the movie

[JohnnyGossamer]

8 minutes ago, Ethan Hunt said:

The supernatural stuff is easily the worst part of the movie

Apparently, there's three hour cut that included another hour of the family dysfunction, lack of communication, grieving etc. that Aster cut down to two hours. 

[JohnnyGossamer]

6 hours ago, Fanboy said:

Saw this a second time and I think it's masterful. I think the ending definitely sits with you better after a second viewing. I definitely noticed the Rosemary's Baby thing even more this time. I love its allusions to it because it suggests to me that through the eyes of Annie, Peter was a demonic/satanic child she didn't want. In the original alternate ending they filmed it went even further and had Paimon rip Peter's eyes out, which would be playing on the "What did you do to his eyes?!" ending of Rosemary's Baby. It explains why Peter's eyes are cut out in the photographs that the cult were using. I'd love to see the alternate ending to compare it to the original, cause after a second viewing I don't know what would freak me out more. There's something about Peter's untouched empty face being crowned that has just stuck with me so well. 

And going back to ending, I've noticed a shadow figure leaving Peter's body after he jumps out the window (which was a great nod to The Exorcist), and Joan saying "Charlie, you are Paimon, the eighth king of hell" to Peter at the end. I wonder why she mentions Charlie if Paimon is now in Peter's body. I want it to be out on Blu-ray already so I can dissect it more. There's so much to get out of this movie. 
 

Grandma is Queen to Paimon's King, correct? Otherwise, it's odd to make a point to have Queen Leigh and photo of her. Or, just needlessly confusing. 

 

Must've missed that with Charlie but I assume if that's the case... Peter's body is given over to Charlie's spirit/body in that moment which was already prepped for Paimon and, in that moment your reference, then given to Paimon finally given to Paimon.

 

Ah, the eye thing? I'd assume he plucks out his own eyes? Can't imagine how else that would've been filmed.

 

As interesting as it is to determine who's who and what's what, these are storytelling gaffes of a guy making a first time feature. Bet he communicates his narrative beats more effectively, even if it's dreamlike, Lynchian, what have  you, in his next feature. I believe his next is another horror film being financed by A24.

 

I'm hoping this is his Repulsion and his next his Rosemary's Baby a la Polanski. As in, Polanski dropped jaws with his Repulsion and then followed it up soon after his more accomplished Rosemary's Baby.

Edited June 11, 2018 by JohnnyGossamer

[K1stpierre]

As much as I love how this director filmed this movie (no cheesy cliche horror tropes like jump scares and such), I can’t say this movie is really all that scary or even had me on edge.

 

For most of this movie I was either laughing (the characters and their actions just seem hilarious to me) or just sitting their confused.....waiting for the film to actually get going. Minus a few shocking scenes (when the daughter died in the car me andboyfriend just literally sat there with our mouths dropped). 

 

It’s by no means a terrible movie, but it really doesn’t deserve all this hype it’s getting. I’d give it a B-, 7/10

[Water Bottle]

"There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord." Deuteronomy 18:10-12

 

Hereditary is brilliant. It's a compelling family drama about a cursed family who has to suffer due to the actions of one of their loved ones. The acting is brilliant, the characters are so well-developed, that one can't help but become attached to them and invested in their survival. The mood is excellent with amazing cinematography that entrances you into the movie. The editing is also great really capturing the horror elements of the script very well. The scene where the girl loses her head? That's such a shocking scene that really establishes Hereditary isn't your typical horror movie.

 

As for the supernatural stuff? You have divination, people inquiring after the dead, witches setting up family members as sacrifices for their own gain. As the movie moves on and it becomes more clear what is happening, as a Christian, I couldn't help but think about the Bible and how God's view on witchcraft is that it comes from the devil. Hereditary gets that. At no point do these characters seek help from a priest or a pastor. They don't consult the Bible or seek aid from God. Annie tries to solve the problem on her own but she's way in over her head and doesn't even begin to comprehend what is actually going on.

 

And so with evil moving in around them and the family being left on their own, it should come as no surprise that in the end they fail. There's Steve, a practical man who believes his family is losing their minds after Charlie's death because he misinterpreted the signs that were in front of him. I know some people think this was more psychosis and all the supernatural stuff was in their heads but I don't think that's true at all. In the end, he burns because he couldn't accept that his worldview was wrong despite the evidence he saw contradicting it.

 

There's Annie, a woman who loses a lot in the movie. Even when she thinks she knows what's going on, she really doesn't simply because almost everything she learns and when she learns it comes from the witches. She only learns about the seance because Joan teaches her but she never really learns what the incantation does. She places too much faith in Joan. She thinks that the diary is linked to her but that's proven wrong eventually as well. When she finally has enough of the picture to know what's going on, it's too late. Because she doesn't actually learn how to fix it. She makes assumptions but they prove to be wrong almost every time.

 

Then there's the kids. Charlie, the girl who was supposed to be a boy, a vessel for a demon king, who is very weird. She ends up literally losing her head. It seems like an accident at first but the sign on the pole, the deer on the road causing Peter to swerve, the foggy eery road all points to it being planned by the witches. We think she may have been suffering an allergic reaction but it could have been a spell put on her that causes her to stick her head out. Murdered but it's also suggested that because she carried the demon king inside her, that she might have been put in Peter.

 

And poor Peter. A typical teen boy whose thrust into a world that terrifies him and which he understands very little of. Alex Wolff does such a good job with him. Seriously, Toni Collette and Alex Wolff are standouts here. Peter who is driven constantly mad, increasing his paranoia, until finally he jumps out the window, leaving his body open for possession. 

 

It's been a while since a movie has been made where I actually wanted to sit down and collect my thoughts. Hereditary is such a movie.

[Jake Gittes]

14 minutes ago, Water Bottle said:

The scene where the girl loses her head?

Man, that scene really knocked my head off!

 

In all seriousness, thanks for providing another fascinating perspective on the story.

[K1stpierre]

I side with Baumer on the whole daughter death thing. When it happened it shocked me and my boyfriend as we weren't expecting it, but then after when he just goes home and then to bed......I'm legit sitting there like "Um.........what?". It also didn't feel realistic to me. I get it, that people go through denial/shock. I just can't imagine myself or anyone I know being able to do that. And also what Baumer said, it just felt like a lazy way for the movie to just gross over it (no police involvement, no dramatic discoveries by anyone, they don't even show anyone questioning the son). 

 

Of course this all was started by the stupidest decision by the mom to make her high school aged son bring his 10 year old sister to his friends party.........um......what?

 

The more I think about the film, the more I think I kind of less like it. I might put it down as a C+

[Jake Gittes]

14 minutes ago, K1stpierre said:

I side with Baumer on the whole daughter death thing. When it happened it shocked me and my boyfriend as we weren't expecting it, but then after when he just goes home and then to bed......I'm legit sitting there like "Um.........what?". It also didn't feel realistic to me. I get it, that people go through denial/shock. I just can't imagine myself or anyone I know being able to do that. And also what Baumer said, it just felt like a lazy way for the movie to just gross over it (no police involvement, no dramatic discoveries by anyone, they don't even show anyone questioning the son). 

 

Of course this all was started by the stupidest decision by the mom to make her high school aged son bring his 10 year old sister to his friends party.........um......what?

 

The more I think about the film, the more I think I kind of less like it. I might put it down as a C+

What would be the point of showing us someone questioning the son? We saw what happened. We saw his reaction to it. We saw the dinner table aftermath. I don't see what else is needed.

 

Mom's insistence that he take his sister to the party is obviously part of the tragedy. It's not like the movie tries to sell that as rational behavior. But she was angry and used his dishonesty about what kind of party it was going to be to channel that anger into irrational demands. No joke, it's all so plausible it's painful.

[baumer]

What would be the point of showing all of that? How about realism? How about because that's what would happen in real life? If my son killed my daughter and left her headless corpse in my car and I discovered it the next day my son would be getting an earful from me immediately. You guys are giving this movie way too much leeway.

[That One Girl]

.

Edited April 21, 2022 by That One Guy

[Water Bottle]

26 minutes ago, baumer said:

What would be the point of showing all of that? How about realism? How about because that's what would happen in real life? If my son killed my daughter and left her headless corpse in my car and I discovered it the next day my son would be getting an earful from me immediately. You guys are giving this movie way too much leeway.

 

Really? Because I wouldn't know how I'd react at all. I don't know if I'd immediately berate him seeing as how I'd be overcome with grief and shock though. The mother certainly was. The father seemed to realize that berating the son was kinda pointless: nothing he could say could match his son's guilt over his actions. But maybe I would berate the son immediately. Maybe I would ignore him for as long as possible because I'd still love him as my son but I'd hate him at the same time and resent him. Those are difficult emotions for anyone to parse and I don't think there's any one way every single person would react. 

[Jake Gittes]

30 minutes ago, baumer said:

What would be the point of showing all of that? How about realism? How about because that's what would happen in real life? If my son killed my daughter and left her headless corpse in my car and I discovered it the next day my son would be getting an earful from me immediately. You guys are giving this movie way too much leeway.

Just because it would happen in real life doesn't mean it's relevant to the story. The story is that he was partly responsible for an accident in which his sister died, couldn't properly deal with it, and he and his mother blame each other instead of each accepting their share of responsibility. All of this is clearly shown onscreen. Anything else would be superfluous. Him being questioned or yelled at wouldn't add anything meaningful to the story or character development. Nothing is lost if it's kept offscreen. 

[baumer]

14 minutes ago, Water Bottle said:

 

Really? Because I wouldn't know how I'd react at all. I don't know if I'd immediately berate him seeing as how I'd be overcome with grief and shock though. The mother certainly was. The father seemed to realize that berating the son was kinda pointless: nothing he could say could match his son's guilt over his actions. But maybe I would berate the son immediately. Maybe I would ignore him for as long as possible because I'd still love him as my son but I'd hate him at the same time and resent him. Those are difficult emotions for anyone to parse and I don't think there's any one way every single person would react. 

 

Yes. Really.

[Fanboy]

No one really know how they would react to a situation as traumatic as that until they are in it, but I wouldn't be surprised if 17 year old me would react a similar way to Peter did. If anything, Peter reacting in a rational way would be unrealistic. 

One thing I love is how the movie portrays PTSD. That minor scene where Peter is smoking with his friends and re-enacts the scene in his head as if it was happening to him was so good. 

Edited June 14, 2018 by Fanboy

[filmlover]

I don't think the movie needed to show more than it did re: the aftermath of Charlie's death. We see Peter in the car for a few minutes absorbing what has just happened, he goes home and heads to his room (even though his parents are awake and fall asleep when they assume they both made it home ok), the next morning he forces himself to hear Annie's blood-curdling screams as she discovers what has happened and see how it completely destroys her life (as the death of a youngest child would do for any parent). The dinner table scene later on got the point across.

[AniNate]

14 hours ago, baumer said:

What would be the point of showing all of that? How about realism? How about because that's what would happen in real life? If my son killed my daughter and left her headless corpse in my car and I discovered it the next day my son would be getting an earful from me immediately. You guys are giving this movie way too much leeway.

 

To complement what Jake Gittes has already said, you realize that you're asking for realism in a movie about evil ghost possession. 

[baumer]

1 hour ago, tribefan695 said:

 

To complement what Jake Gittes has already said, you realize that you're asking for realism in a movie about evil ghost possession. 

 

Yes, I am. Part of the hook of this movie is that it deal with family issues, grief, regret, fear, depression.  These are all real emotions and so if you want to make the film consistent throughout, you need to keep the tone consistent.  That's like saying that I shouldn't expect realism or I should give a pass to dumb characters and stupid plot points in films like The Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby because they are about demonology.  Demons and ghosts and possession might not be realistic to some, but this isn't a spoof movie where the characters act stupidly.  This is a film where the characters have to be believable in order for the film to work.  So, yes, when a guy gets into an accident and his sister's head is lopped off, I do expect him to call the police, tell his parents and act in a certain way.  Driving home with your sister's corpse in the car and then sleeping on it is not a very good plot piece, in fact, it's horrible. 

[Krissykins]

The boy was in shock and lay on his bed without sleeping the full night not knowing how to react or deal with the situation. 

 

The mothers screams off camera the next morning were haunting. 

 

I found the scene where the husband found Annie making a recreation of the accident scene really unsettling. The start of the spiral into chaos.

 

The sons face disfiguring in the classroom was terrifying. 

[dashrendar44]

I won't repeat what other posters already brilliantly dissected and analyzed about the subtext of grief, guilt and mental illness being explored through the horror genre trope (popularized by The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby or The Wicker's Man) but did we stumble onto the new Richard Kelly of this decade?

 

Because the whole movie reminded me a bit of Donnie Darko as in a drama story framed through genre tropes, so engrossed by its own bubbling ambition like an eager film school graduate wanting to impress by flaunting all his cinephile mettle into the blender at the risk of being goofy and sybilline (Toni Collette's character sleepwalks like Donnie Darko both triggering unsettling visions projecting their inner troubled psyche). It also reminded me a bit of Amenabar's The Others in terms of atmosphere.

 

Moreover, the sense of dread reminded me way more of some True Detective S01 episodes flirting with the supernatural and all that southern gothic mythology exploring the occult underbelly pervading the world and our minds (Carcosa rituals).

 

I suscribe to the opinion that the movie seems eager to be deep beyond the surface but seems to ramble from scenes to scenes, jumbling from tone to tone (family drama then psychological thriller then full blown supernatural grand-guignolesque horror), not really knowing where all of the elements amount to something that coagulesces and meshes well or making perfect sense altogether up to its grand-guignolesque finale which is either over-the-top ridiculous or chilling/fascinating like The Witch's ending, depending of the beholder's emotional engagement to buy all the far-fetched things happening. You try to figure out as it goes but there comes a point when the director wants you to buy and swallow wholesale something that is not set up clearly or hard to swallow like a U-turn into WTF?! territory in the middle of the movie.

 

But the director surely knows how to ramp up and conjure the dread during individual scenes by his sense of framing and crafting unnerving imagery with sparse elements. My favourite in terms of absolute horror is all tied to Toni Collette's performance of a mentally ill mother being eaten bit by bit by grief and the burden of her family's insane legacy. (That scene when she gets possessed by her daughter and the helpless reactions of her hubby and son were bone-chilling and painful in terms of depicting a loved one's mental state unraveling before your eyes and having to deal with it on top of your own turmoil. The repulsive dread and the heartwrenching sadness works on both levels, the popcorn horror metaphor and the realistic one which is the one that really touches a nerve).

 

Collette sells it for me (whether she's torn by grief, sobbing for sympathy or overcome with resentment and frightening anger) and navigates her way through an acrobatic role (displaying her chameleon-like abilities) in what looks like a promising but slightly messy debut.

 

A-

Edited June 16, 2018 by dashrendar44

[Kravetz]

On 6/7/2018 at 7:46 PM, DeeCee said:

Every family tree hides a secret

the secret is out, this isn't that scary. Sure it is a thriller more than a horror film, and there is a ghost / supernatural element to this film. It doesn't scare because it is predictable. I knew that Joan/Joann was a cult member and after I knew, we see the door mats. The film did surprise me twice. I thought the kids tree house would drop on daddy after he walks out on his crazy family, but he magically caught on fire. And there was all the nudists in the end. I did not need / expect that. Kudos to the film makers for that surprise ending.  I'm ashamed to be a man,  Performances were nice, although the ads told me the young girl would be a leading star. Her ghost had less screen time than she did. The devil must work in strange and mysterious ways. 

 

to prove my point, three teens snuck into the theater after the girl lost her head in the car. They were bored and un-involved and left a few minutes later. They learned not to fall into peer pressure to see cool R rated films about teens because this one bored them. True they missed the bird and the bees, but the film must have felt like home, with bickering at the dinner table and all. 

 

And that boy just left her body in the back of the car for mommie to find? Not pretending an animal did it, or leaving the window broken like a burglar did it? and they didn't put him into a treatment center? How convenient. This film just didn't work for me. Sorry. 

Edited June 16, 2018 by Kravetz
made it funnier