Hereditary (2018)

[krankydoodle]

Quote

When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter's family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry.

IMDB and Wikipedia pages.

This reminded me of The Witch. I really like both movies, but found them so upsetting that I have no interest in ever seeing either again (and I say that as a habitual rewatcher).

I'm glad I didn't read any reviews beforehand because some spoiled the accident, and that was the first time in ages that I've been surprised enough by a movie to jump and audibly react. Now that I've read the reviews, I agree with what everyone's said about Toni Collette's outstanding performance. Milly Shapiro and Alex Wolff were also great. It was almost painful to watch Wolff in the aftermath of the accident. Keeping the focus on his face was an effective choice and then to keep it on him as we hear Annie head to the car--blissfully unaware of what's happened--only to discover Charlie and start wailing. Ugh.

I have a few issues with the movie, but some of the images--and sounds (cluck!)--will stick with me for a long time. And it cracks me up that there's an Etsy store for Charlie's "dolls": https://www.etsy.com/shop/CraftsByCharlieG/

Edited June 12, 2018 by krankydoodle

[afterbite]

I've been waiting for a forum on this. I saw this movie on Sunday morning. There was one other person in the theater, and when the movie ended, I desperately wanted to start a conversation with her. I think it would have consisted of the two of us repeating "What the f***?" at one another.

My primary issue with the movie is that I think I would have preferred it absent the actual demon. Before the demon part became an established fact, I thought this movie was one of the best depictions of mental illness/psychosis that I've ever seen. Toni's character Annie was spiraling, convinced there was some kind of evil that was going to destroy her family, and she couldn't really convince anyone to help her stop it from happening. You could feel her mounting anxiety and desperation - it was so real for her. Her husband, who loved her and tried to help her, wasn't on board with what she was seeing. You could see the clock counting down on her kids. Peter, at least, looked like he'd been set on the path. It was, to me, very much like what it might be like to be trapped in a delusion you're sure is real. In that version, in the end, Peter's psychosis would have become that he was a demon reincarnate.

But no. Still, I was okay with the demon story until things started to edge into cheesy. I maintain that the movie would have been far more frightening if no one had left the ground. No Annie hanging from the roof, flying, etc. If she'd sawed her head off while on the floor, standing 10 feet away from Peter, it would have been more disconcerting. She could have still been possessed, without the movie suddenly becoming a parody of itself for those 5 minutes. Once they were in the treehouse, it went back to creepy, but the mood had already been ruined for me.

I was amused by the thought that if I was Paimon, I'd be pretty upset. Here I am manifest on Earth, and all I get is a cult of old, naked people.

One of the creepiest things (to me) that no one seems to be talking about - one of Annie's models showed her with a newborn Charlie, and her mom was there, offering her breast for breastfeeding.

And that's my initial thought-dump.

[krankydoodle]

I thought there'd be a lot more discussion about this movie considering all the buzz it got. Oh, well.

I didn't have a problem with the demon element, but part of what I think makes this movie so effective is that the family drama is almost as harrowing as the horror movie scares. Annie's overwhelming grief, Peter's guilt, and Steve's helplessness in the face of all that were tough to watch. The scene at the dinner table and Annie's dream confession to Peter that she never wanted him and tried to induce a miscarriage were especially brutal.

On 6/12/2018 at 6:34 PM, afterbite said:

One of the creepiest things (to me) that no one seems to be talking about - one of Annie's models showed her with a newborn Charlie, and her mom was there, offering her breast for breastfeeding.

I was reading a discussion where people were pointing out details like the presence of the cult's sigil on the pole that killed Charlie and that one of Peter's teachers was among the worshippers at the end, so I might have to watch it again after all.

Edited June 14, 2018 by krankydoodle

[afterbite]

I noticed the symbol on the pole - they lingered on the pole a couple of times so we could see it, though admittedly it was difficult to discern. I didn't realize one of his teachers was in the cult. I did see that the guy who smiled creepily at grandma's funeral was, though. I was actually glad that closed that circle, because for a moment I thought that guy was just an extra goofing around in the background who somehow made it into the scene.

I also liked the detail where there was a picture of the family on vacation hanging in what I presume was a cult member's house. You can see it when Annie looks through the photobook and finds mom being showered with coins and creepy cult people having a party.

Edited June 15, 2018 by afterbite

[Notwisconsin]

it reminded me of rosemary's baby.

[afterbite]

5 hours ago, Notwisconsin said:

it reminded me of rosemary's baby.

With a dash of the original recipe 'The Wicker Man' and a hint of the Exorcist, maybe.

[snickers]

On 6/12/2018 at 6:34 PM, afterbite said:

I think it would have consisted of the two of us repeating "What the f***?" at one another.

When I walked out of my theater, I heard a very loud "what the hell was that!" to someone saying, "I need more of an explanation" to a person replying, "what's to explain, that was a sh-t movie!"

LOL

I knew going into the movie it had a low audience review score but a high critic review score and it was discount day at my local theater

I didn't mind it, didn't love it, but didn't dislike it, I liked how it was pretty scary in a very creepy way (which lately i've been finding to be the scariest movies) and while the audiences might not be feeling this movie i thought this movie was way better than mother!

 

the good: the acting-very good acting by everyone i thought, the music-very suspenseful, and the creepiness of the feel of the movie

the bad: not explaining enough about Paimon/Charlie (though upon further reflection a lot of signs were there), the cheese factor of Annie's possession from Paimon and the whole levitating and the naked cult members

 

While I didn't mind it that it ended up being satanists, they were just too creepy-naked and all! but I guess that's what the movie was going for, and I did catch that the teacher was in the group, but I didn't catch that one of the funeral attendees was one as well

 

Oh and is it just me, or was that decapitated head looking a little too good there at the end? Shouldn't it have been more decomposed *rolls eyes* thought it was a pretty gross site, what was with the bird cage?

 

And I agree it was a lot like Rosemary's Baby plus the Exorcist I thought

Edited June 21, 2018 by snickers

[ZoqFotPik]

First of all, I'm getting old. All I could think about when showed the exterior of the house was "Man, that's a nice house!" Seriously, that would a 2 to 3 million dollar house where I live.

On 6/12/2018 at 3:34 PM, afterbite said:

My primary issue with the movie is that I think I would have preferred it absent the actual demon. Before the demon part became an established fact, I thought this movie was one of the best depictions of mental illness/psychosis that I've ever seen. Toni's character Annie was spiraling, convinced there was some kind of evil that was going to destroy her family, and she couldn't really convince anyone to help her stop it from happening. You could feel her mounting anxiety and desperation - it was so real for her. Her husband, who loved her and tried to help her, wasn't on board with what she was seeing. You could see the clock counting down on her kids. Peter, at least, looked like he'd been set on the path. It was, to me, very much like what it might be like to be trapped in a delusion you're sure is real. In that version, in the end, Peter's psychosis would have become that he was a demon reincarnate.

I completely agree. The movie had me right up until the end. I was really hoping it would be the mother and son having psychotic episodes. At the support group meeting, Annie states that mental illness runs in her family and that her brother was schizophrenic. Schizophrenia has a genetic component, is more common in males, and something like 50% of all cases it manifests around age 20. Since Peter is in high school and can drive, that would put him in the range for the disease of start presenting symptoms.

On 6/12/2018 at 3:34 PM, afterbite said:

But no. Still, I was okay with the demon story until things started to edge into cheesy. I maintain that the movie would have been far more frightening if no one had left the ground. No Annie hanging from the roof, flying, etc. If she'd sawed her head off while on the floor, standing 10 feet away from Peter, it would have been more disconcerting. She could have still been possessed, without the movie suddenly becoming a parody of itself for those 5 minutes. Once they were in the treehouse, it went back to creepy, but the mood had already been ruined for me.

I also agree with this. The scenes of Annie on the walls and ceiling were completely unnecessary and didn't really fit the tone of the movie. It really took me out of the movie.

So overall, I thought this was a good not great film. It did a fantastic job of building tension and the family dynamics were spot on. However, I feel that it really fell apart during the ending.

[festivus]

Just got back from seeing this with my friend because her kid told us we needed to go. He owes me $10.80. The only part I thought was good was the son right after the accident. That shock was well done.

[Anela]

I've been trying to watch it online, since I can't get to a theatre for the late showing, and it's the only time it's showing now, in my area. I'm halfway through, and don't know what is going on, so I googled, and I don't know if I'll watch the rest. I felt guilty looking it up online, but I'm glad I didn't spend $10 to see it. 

[Macbeth]

On July 6, 2018 at 8:00 PM, Anela said:

I've been trying to watch it online, since I can't get to a theatre for the late showing, and it's the only time it's showing now, in my area. I'm halfway through, and don't know what is going on, so I googled, and I don't know if I'll watch the rest. I felt guilty looking it up online, but I'm glad I didn't spend $10 to see it. 

I regret spending the $$ for the rental. I don't know what the critics were raving about. Once the daughter was decapitated I shut it off for good. 

[festivus]

1 hour ago, Macbeth said:

I regret spending the $$ for the rental. I don't know what the critics were raving about. Once the daughter was decapitated I shut it off for good. 

Be glad you did. the ending was one of the stupidest things I've seen and I watch 80's Z grade horror movies for fun.

[Cranberry]

I thought the first 75% of the movie was great. Suspenseful, creepy, really well-acted. I was in a fairly busy theater and everyone was silent. The only noise I heard was everyone gasping during the accident scene! But the last bit, once we realized there really was a demon and people started flying around... that was just cheesy and over the top, and people in the theater were laughing in disbelief and actually saying, "What the fuck" out loud. The ending ruined the movie for me. Like some of you said above, I would have preferred if some of the characters just had legitimate mental problems and torpedoed their own lives. I find that much scarier than people flying around.

[Weak Sauce]

I just saw this. While reading up on the cast, I was surprised to see Milly Shapiro was one of the original Marildas on Broadway. I looked up a video to jog my memory , and she was fantastic. Very different from Charlie lol.

 

[Token]

Add me to this list of people disappointed by this movie.  And I regret the $7 I spent to rent it.

I knew it had great critic reviews but I didn't realise it had such bad audience reviews.  It had one shocking moment, the accident, and that was it.  It had a boring start, one shocking moment, more boredom, then it started veering into stupidity.  Great actors and acting, but the story ended up being stupid and really wasn't well written or directed at all.  I also said to myself at the end, "what the fuck was that all about???"  I'm a fairly intelligent person, and I don't mind having to put some thought into movies that I watch, but that was just bad.  It was trying to be intelligent and failed miserably.  What a waste of time and money.

[festivus]

I was just reading my Entertainment Weekly and I was shocked that it actually made a best list for 2018. I don't get it. Toni Collette was great, I always love her, but the movie was shite. Honestly, me and EW parted ways a long time ago on what constitutes a good movie, tv show, album(especially that one, I just skip the music section). 

 

I mean it's not like I don't love a good bad horror movie, hello The Apparition, but at least that one wasn't making any best lists or pretending to be art. 

[Token]

I think what I found most irritating is why did the demon have to inhabit Charlie in Peter's body?  Why not just inhabit Peter in the first place?  It was all just confusing and not really explained.

[blugirlami21]

Annie never allowed her mother to be close to Peter as a baby so she was unable to have the demon possess him like she was able to with Charlie. 

Annie admitted that she gave her Mother Charlie basically as a consolation prize because she felt guilty about that.

I thought the movie up to the end was very scary and jarring and suspenseful. The ending with the cult just took the wind out of the sails. I'm also not sure what they could have done differently.

Edited December 15, 2018 by blugirlami21

[millennium]

What an over-hyped piece of crap.   To think I looked forward to it all this time.  I finally saw it just now on Amazon Prime.

It was like a shaggy dog story, except the joke at the end wasn't funny.

The special effect of demon-people climbing the walls like insects is OLD.   The self-decapitation scene was just gore porn.

I don't get all the people who were confused by what was going on in this film.   The movie basically clobbered us over the head with sign posts -- even setting off the relevant passage about Paimon in yellow highlighter!   Then at the end Ann Dowd basically gives us the Cliff Notes version of what we just watched.   The only truly mysterious thing about this terrible film is that it wasn't made by M. Night Shamalyan.

[Simon Boccanegra]

The mixed reception reminds me a little of the response to The Shining in 1980. There was some acclaim, but also a lot (from critics and especially from general audiences) of "Why couldn't it just be about a man who's mentally ill? Why do we actually have to have ghosts and haunting, because we've had so much supernatural horror and that's passé now. It ruins the ambiguity when the wife sees one of the ghosts too. I didn't understand it; what does that picture at the end mean? And it's too slow and long," et cetera. (There was also a lot of complaining from readers of the book, not a factor with Hereditary.) The Shining only became a "horror classic" with the passage of years, as it found a place in a Kubrick canon and other filmmakers were influenced by it. Hereditary may too. With the way things happen at a more accelerated pace now, I don't doubt that some other hyped horror film in 2023 will occasion comments like "How can you compare this to Hereditary? That's a masterpiece of mood and tension; this is derivative garbage!"  

I thought it was very creepy and effective, myself, with superb use of sound. The ending pulled all the strands together well enough; everything that was carefully planted ultimately pays off. It's one to think and talk about too: Annie's brother's beliefs were not delusional; the Paimon illustration in the book gives away the need for three heads; even the horrible "accident" isn't really an accident. 

However, it's a difficult watch. It isn't one of those horror films with an equilibrium-restoring epilogue and only a hint of lingering threat to leave the door ajar for a sequel. It starts bleak and gets bleaker. Collette really should have had an Academy Award nomination (I'd have booted Lady Gaga out to make room), and I was impressed with Alex Wolff too. The scariest moment for me was something so basic and low-tech: Peter's smirking reflection in the glass. Milly Shapiro was (for the purpose of this film) one creepy, wrong-looking little girl, and I liked the detail of how, except for the father, the whole family seemed haphazardly groomed, disheveled, even before things started to fall apart.

Only Gabriel Byrne seemed to be slumming a bit. He's a good actor and brought some gravitas to Steve, but it seems whenever there's a movie in which the lead actress has a strong role (strong in the sense of fullness and focus), the actor playing her husband or boyfriend gets something correspondingly weak and underwritten. It's as if one half of a couple has to take a dive for there to be (im)balance.  

Edited February 2, 2019 by Simon Boccanegra

[freebie]

Quote

The only truly mysterious thing about this terrible film is that it wasn't made by M. Night Shamalyan.

LOL! So late to the party, but I just watched via Kanopy, which is a free service you can access with a library card. I'm firmly in the camp of viewers who are glad about not having spent money on this. Like some of the commenters here, I really was hoping for a psychological thriller from end-to-end, rather than an ersatz Rosemary's Baby. Some of it was honestly just ridiculous, even at the beginning, when I wasn't sure which way it was going to break.

Annie's eulogy was so inappropriate -- textbook example of saying the quiet parts out loud. And then when she unloaded on a group of random, grieving strangers with her circus freak show family history, I actually laughed out loud. All I could think about was being in a group like that and having some newcomer spill all of that tea at her first meeting! I probably would start questioning whether I was grieving at all after sitting through her litany of woe -- formerly estranged mother with dissociative identity disorder, father who starved to death, uncle who killed himself -- yikes!

I found it completely improbable that someone with her history was able to marry and have her own family. She must have had a ton of therapy. And don't get me started on how so many of these characters defaulted to the most illogical next step. Every time.

• Daughter has severe nut allergy and will be attending (a) a wake where there is typically food from a number of well-meaning friends and relations, and (b) a high school "BBQ"? No worries -- leave the epi pen at home!
• Random woman from your grief group (that you went to once, months ago) invites you to her house (what a coincidence -- her door mat looks just like the ones your weirdo mother used to make)? Sure, tell her your darkest secrets, like that time you almost immolated yourself and your kids. Totally normal.
• Random woman from your grief group conjures her dead grandson (on just your second visit to her home -- isn't this friendship moving a bit fast)? Don't run screaming -- take the candle she offers and a handy printed copy of the incantation. You might need it later when you coerce your husband and son to participate in a ritual to raise the spirit of your dead daughter.
• Son has some sort of seizure/psychotic break at school? Let's get that broken nose checked out, then head on home, kiddo! You probably need a nap. High school is so stressful!
• Dad is burnt to a crisp on the hearth and deranged mom attacks from a darkened corner (because who would think to flip on the lights when it's still dark outside)? Head upstairs into the attic. Probably nothing freaky or scary in there.

Sheesh!