‘Hereditary’ is a Harrowing Tidal Wave of Grief and Unease

In the opening shot, the camera is fixated on a massive tree house, and as it pulls back, you realize you’re looking at it through the confines of an attic. The camera then pans to the right to show a miniature version of what you can only assume is the house in which you’re in. The camera zooms into the miniature, showing an intricate amount of details, a true work of a master. When the camera stops, you’re in the middle of a bedroom, and someone is sleeping. Steve (Greg Byrne) walks into the room, and the story begins. I don’t understand the mechanics of the shot, nor would I pretend to. But two things are immediately clear: We’re dealing with a director who will be toying with us, and someone, some thing is there, watching, waiting.

Rumors of Hereditary had mounted to a fever pitch by the time I was able to see it. People were calling it the scariest horror movie in years. And with A24’s track record, you knew it would be artistic, placing it directly in my wheelhouse.

Director Ari Aster described Hereditary as “a family tragedy that curdles into a nightmare,” meaning the family aspect was always the most important matter of his film, and that’s where it began. Annie Graham’s (Toni Collette) mother has died, and each member of the family is grieving in their own unique way. Despite the morbid relief that she feels because of the departure of her mother, whom she deemed manipulative, Annie sneaks off to group therapy and immerses herself into her miniatures, depicting the seminal moments of her life, a sort of therapy in itself. Steve tries to be there for his wife. Peter (Alex Wolff) smoke tons of weed. 13-year-old Charlie (Milly Shapiro), an odd child with no friends and a penchant for creating odd little statues and figurines, who was her grandmother’s favorite, sleeps in the tree house to feel more connected to her deceased relative. They isolate themselves, or in the case of Steve, are isolated. This comes on the heels of the audience finding out the history of mental illness within Annie’s family. Grief is a monster, one that eats away at you, uglifies you, and turns you into someone else, and the Graham family battles it early and often.

At about 30 minutes in, something shocking happens, changing the course of the film, a sign that this wasn’t the film we thought it was going to be. No one was safe. The grief evolved into an uglier, more disfigured beast, and the small rift in the family became a deep chasm. Blame was spread; hate was spewed; and fits of sleepwalking by Annie made Peter feel as if his life was in danger. When Joan (Ann Dowd), a support group member, inserts herself into the situation, things get supernatural in a hurry, and question of mental health is thrust into the forefront once again.

In the final act of the film, Hereditary goes completely off the rails at an intense pace, piecing together particles from earlier in the film that felt insignificant into a bizarre, completed puzzle with a much larger scope than we previously expected. I can’t bring myself to spoil what happens because it is such a shocking turn of events that it needs to be viewed without any preconceived notions. You’ll find yourself desperately wanting to go back for another viewing to see everything in an entirely different light.

Toni Collette is the star, demanding the spotlight in each and every scene. You feel her pain and anguish as she mourns, and you feel the sanity slipping from her very grasp. If she’s not up for Best Actress this year, either it is an incredible year or she will have been robbed. But Alex Wolff shouldn’t be discounted here. As a young actor, he was asked to display a very real, very raw pain time and time again, and he did so in a way that brought realness and sincerity to the tragedies that kept piling up.

Colin Stetson’s music direction was nothing short of incredible. He creates tension and unease without ever overdoing it. In fact, one of his finest moments is when he minimizes everything. There’s a short moment in which Peter walks down the hall of his house, unaware of the horrors that await him, and there’s no sound whatsoever other than his breathing and footsteps. The viewer is acutely away of the uncomfortable silence, knowing full well it will be broken, but the anticipation of it is suffocating.

In his feature debut, Aster has ensured that he will get a plethora of opportunities to create and for a good reason. Hereditary is a force of unease, a tidal wave of harrowing fright on the senses, art in its most primal form. There are moments that seem Wes Anderson-esque (like a particular funeral and the use of all the miniatures), yet it is very clearly his own, distinct style, a tough feat in an industry that breeds imitation. I look forward to his rising career.

The horror genre is having a moment in time right now, one I’ve written about at length. Works of art are now being created in a genre that had been left for dead, relegated to populous amounts of blood, gore, and campiness. It’s a resurrection of the genre in the way that it was meant to exist, and the offerings of that have been oh so glorious. And Hereditary may be the very best of the bunch. No movie can ever truly be perfect, but for a moment, one can dance with that unattainable level. For a little over two hours, Hereditary was a perfect 5/5.