Hereditary

Hereditary is a good although bitterly slow-moving horror film that enters the summer fray in between blockbusters and sequels to give us a whole lot of confusion with a bit of fright toward the end.

The construction of this film is very interesting as it intersects with theories of doll houses, or constructions created by someone to represent living things but controlled by another, almost outside entity and also deals with the nuance of dissecting the nuclear family; how well we know or don’t know the people closest to us.

Hereditary begins with the death of a matriarch, the grandmother of a very peculiar and often creepy 13-year-old and her emotional damaged mother, played brilliantly by Toni Collette, who is the designer/architect of some sorts, thus the use of miniature designs throughout the film.

There’s not much given here to the viewer, which is a solid-device to keep us paying attention, although flawed in this scenario because we lack the breadcrumbs to piece the story together ourselves but it’s interesting none-the-less to watch the drama unfold.

Like captive audiences in a puppet play the lead characters move about for our amusement but we’re never entirely sure what their intentions are. The dad (Gabriel Byrne), is he up to no good, or how about the stoner son? Why are we following his bad dreams and hallucinations?

When it comes down to it this is an upper-middle class family with some serious psychological and emotional issues that are both real and alternatively real. It’s hard to explain without giving away the story but if you’ve seen 2015 The Witch, you’ll have a much better familiarity of the structure style of Hereditary.

Like that film, Hereditary, is well shot and uses the mundane as a building suspense, but to what? The story moves in sequential order each day, with brief interlaces of horrific dreams used to question the viewers interpretation of reality (already seen this too many times) then quickly morph into what the audience was hoping for, which is fear.

However, these supernatural occurrences occur unknowingly and without set-up, with only a brief exposition gleamed from some old books before a thrilling climax.

It was an entertaining film but far from great. Solid acting from Collette and her screen daughter Mily Shapiro keep you interested most of the way through, where you’re likely to say this was ‘rubbish’, or ‘oh I get it and kind of like it’, or maybe there’s greater powers at hand in this story (doll house people) but definitely not saying this was an amazing horror film.

Far better than Truth or Dare but miles behind A Quite Place.