Ari Aster’s debut feature film, Hereditary, is, well, scary. Very scary actually. Keeping in line with a lot of horror movies lately, Hereditary is done with lots of artistry. To say it is a modern horror masterpiece is not going too far, but it would actually be quite fair.
At the center of the movie you have Annie Graham, played by Toni Collette, who is an artist, and her family: husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), son Peter (Alex Wolff), and daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro). You can tell from the beginning that the family is at least dysfunctional. To go into too many details of the film would be unfair, not only for those of you who want to go see it but also because you simply might not believe me even if I did say so.
There are a lot of things that go on in this movie that draw you in. None more so than, the psychological pain these characters are going through. The movie is so well acted that you begin to share in the pain of each character. By the end of the movie, Peter is a shell of the person he was in the beginning and it’s not easy to watch him.
One of my favorite things about this movie is the first half plays like an actual drama. It shows the family dealing with several tragedies and isn’t until roughly half way through does the actual scary stuff really take hold. Don’t worry though, they make up for it in the second half.
Toni Collette is amazing in this role. It might seriously be the best she has ever been. Her character alone will be keeping you up at night. That and the haunting sound of a tongue click.
Photo Source: Hereditary, IMDb
