HereditarySamira Soto9.9· October 27, 2018FollowConsidering this is my 4th go-around with this film, I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to put my full thoughts and feelings toward it down into a full review. This movie stands up after multiple viewings in a way not many of its companions in the horror genre do, not necessarily just for the thrills and chills, but the subtlies and nuance that build this small world around this family so fully and believably, much like Annie creates hers. The exploration of this family’s layered battle with grief and resentment toward one another is careful and methodical. I often find myself coming back to Annie’s diatribe about how the tragedies their family has suffered is wasted in the end, because instead of bringing them together, they are all stuck in limbo harboring animosity out of fear of facing what has happened to them. Peter won’t look in the rear-view. Annie won’t speak to her psychiatrist husband, Steve. Ellen, Annie’s mother, won’t right her wrongs that lead her son to suicide. It’s almost as if the entire family, besides Steve, would rather let their grief haunt them, much like King Paimon, than face it head-on together. In the end this is most importantly the story of a family, a very tragic one, that never had the control they believed so earnestly to yield in their hands to navigate their fate. The horror comes secondary to the environment that cultivated the perfect storm that are the events of this film. Toni Collette does an exceptional job as the matriarch, desperate to seek a scapegoat, and ready by the end of it, to be the sacrificial lamb to save her family. To keep this as short as possible, I’d like to make a list of bullet points of the many, many factors that pull this movie off for me so well:• Colin Stetson’s beckoning horn-like score is expertly crafted in a way any film with this suspense cannot go without. It makes me want to rewatch Arrival.• I’m convinced Ari Aster sat in a class full of high scoolers and quoted them verbatim for this screenplay. The dialogue is scary realistic. The conversation on fate and choice is, like, literally so meta.• The details matter so much here. The demon king of mischief terrorizing this family with clicks of the tongue, apparitions, and nightmares. The cult members hiding in the shadows. A smile from a naked stranger eerily calling-back to a smile at a funeral. Joan packing a chalkboard into the trunk of her car after “bumping into” Annie at the art supply store. In a movie about an exacting demonic cult, the movie’s logic holds up so well to some intense scrutiny.• Toni Collette channeling Shelley Duvall in The Shining with expressions of abject terror that could only be experienced by those two characters and their sons could not be more appropriate nor effective.• “That fucking face on your face!” 5/5 This one is fated for cult classic status. Pun intended.CommentsSign in to react and join the conversation.Sign inGet the appSee all Samira's reviews for Hereditary (5)First watch9.9October 27, 2018Rewatch 19.9January 12, 2019Rewatch 29.9August 18, 2019Rewatch 39.9March 20, 2020Rewatch 49.9April 26, 2024