Hereditary (2018) – Review – Film Fervor

I’ve been chomping at the bit to watch some good independent horror movies lately. Hereditary is one of those films I just had to check out. It’s been out for a few years now, since 2018 actually, but it’s been off my radar because I’ve taken a lot of personal time.

So, fast forward to tonight and I’ve got nothing to watch, holy-buckets of insomnia, and a hankering for horror.

Queue Amazon Prime Video. While browsing I came across this film as a recommended suggestion based on other films I’ve watched (This creeps me out more than most horror movies because “they” are watching. {They, in this instance, is the all powerful algorithm}.) Some of the best indie movies on Amazon Prime and Netflix are available now and should be consumed ravenously.

Back to Hereditary.

The film opens up slowly. In fact, for most of the movie you’d be hard pressed to find a jump scare or any other typical horror trope. With the exception of the rise and fall of suspenseful music. In my opinion, it’s done a little to on the nose at the beginning.

That being said, the slow burning horror of this film combined with it’s unique twist on the archetypal family horror story make it a real treat. I won’t lie and say that the first 10-15 minutes were off putting and a little boring, but that comes from years of being jaded on openings.

In context, I absolutely see where the creator was going and I without a doubt appreciate the creeping, impending doom that’s befalling the characters but when the series of unfortunate (ordained?) events start to unfold, it gets pretty great fairly quickly.

Hereditary is Ari Aster’s debut feature film and my God I have to say I’m now completely interested in all of his work. Until now, I’ve not really known him or seen his work but I’ll be sure to pick up more of them as soon as I can.

The way he plotted the character arcs and how they seemingly fell into the tropes and yet gracefully side-stepped them was impressive. The only problem I have with it I stated before, the slow opener. Technically, the film was beautiful and the pace (once things get started) was a constant build until the very end.

More so, the payoff of the film is just great. I love it when a film ends this way, everything wrapped up in a neat little box of horror and Squick.

All in all, I’m going to go ahead and say that this was one of my favorite recent horror films and it’s really given me a lot of hope for the next batch I get to watch.