Hereditary

The horror genre is an acquired taste depending on an audience members preference of quality, content, and scare level. What can be easily scary to casual viewers could just translate to tame and/or mundane to the hardcore ones. It's worth addressing since in the modern era of the aforementioned topic, there has usually been a pattern of a couple of subpar releases followed by one of legitimate quality that ends up being praised by critics as "scariest of the year", "best scary movie since (insert obvious title)", "one of the scariest of all time", etc (which could be due to getting a breath of fresh air after bad entries). One of these leading factors could be how the projects are marketed towards the audiences and what actually ends up being shown instead. The good and bad scary flicks are impacted by this to the point of watching them while avoiding the trailers altogether, which brings us here. Hereditary, another horror distributed from A24 and directorial debut of Ari Aster (most known for the short film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons), has been making its ways to the mainstream since the positive word of mouth from its debut at SXSW and has been lauded as such masterpiece. I entered the auditorium ready to see what all the buzz was about and left it underwhelmed by the experience.

Note: Much of Hereditary can't be discussed without the spoilers and those of you who have seen it know what I'm talking about.

Plot: The story follows a troubled family going through weird depressing sudden events in their life following the death of the grandmother. The details surrounding the traumatic history deceased members went through provides context on the misery the group had to deal with. The visuals utilized here are fascinating to look at whether its the miniatures the mother is building (which is mostly salad dressing to the plot) and some of the looming camera shots. For those of you concerned about this being in the aforementioned area, this is actually much more of a drama rather than a scary flick. The weight can vary at times depending on how invested you are in these characters. It does deserve credit for something unexpected in the first 20-30 minutes that's both brutal and an inciting incident for tension within the group. It's also worth noting that there are a few great well acted scenes that handle the material quite well (mainly the dinner scene, which is the best one).

However, due to how much of an art house drama/"horror" film this is, there are problems with it that hold it back. The runtime is 20-30 minutes longer than is needed to be and there are some moments that could have been cut out without missing much (that first 30 minutes and middle chunk are the biggest offenders in that regard). The ending falls into some supernatural cliches that are overplayed by current modern movies that derails the payoff for the conflict and has sloppy pacing issues in it (overall it drops the ball hard). There are a handful of dramatic that should be feeling intense at times but to be honest, it can be unintentionally funny (personally it was kind of hard not to laugh plenty of times). The plot itself feels like its trying two tonally different stories for most of the length before making up its mind in the final third or 45 minutes.

Characters: The people to focus on are Annie (Toni Collette) and Peter (Alex Wolfe). Annie is an artist who's talented in miniatures and the matriarch who drives the main conflict of the plot. One of the best things holding Hereditary together is Toni's excellent award nominated worthy performance as she does a great job conveying a vulnerability that gets worse later on. Peter is Annie's teenage son whose actions makes the tension between the mother son even worse. Alex's portrayal is a mixed bag since he's doing what he can with the material he's given but it's also preventing sympathy for his character. Whenever he attempts to act sad and starts crying, it's embarrassing to watch since it's more childish for his age along with the fact he says "mommy" in his frightened state (it's unintentionally hilarious and a better actor could have pulled it off better to bring in more empathy). Honorable mentions goes to Joan (Ann Dowd) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro) for being capable of bringing in solid performances for their respective creepiness (notably the latter for making a tongue click sounds kinda terrifying).

Overall Consensus: Hereditary carries its dramatic strengths through an excellent lead portrayal, good camera shots, nice visuals, a few well-acted scenes, and good soundtrack, but suffers from a long runtime, terrible ending, and story pacing issues. ⭑⭑⭑💻 Runtime: 2 hour 7 minutes R

Reasons to watch it: You like any of the aforementioned actors. You prefer art house dramas with elements of horror. You don't mind some shocking visuals. You don't mind 2 hour long films that has slow pacing with some dragging moments. You don't mind supernatural cliches that most modern scary flicks overuse. You want to see the tensions burst as a family tears itself apart.

Reasons to avoid it: You dislike any of the aforementioned actors. You are annoyed art house dramas with elements of horror. You are sensitive to some shocking visuals. You hate 2 hour long films that has slow pacing with some dragging moments. You are tired of supernatural cliches that most modern scary flicks overuse.

Coming up next: June ran into a fascinating and somewhat polarizing art house entry with Hereditary as some people are going to be enthralled by it or will be annoyed with how its story is executed (personally I'm in the middle about it and would have been nicer had the length been trimmed down by 20 or 30 minutes). All I know is that the next step is to find something light hearted enough and has enough familiar faces to hopefully provide good entertainment. Tune in next time as Screening Spectacles will watch and review the fourth entry in the heist series that debuted in 2001, Ocean's 8! Like and/or follow Screening Spectacles on Facebook and/or Twitter for more updates and reviews!!

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