A24 just continue to hit the ball out of the park. Granted, I admit, I haven't seen a good chunk of their filmography, but the films I have seen from them have all been instant favourites of mine, with Ladybird (2017) being the stand out. Hereditary very much keeps the streak going and drove it home that I really need to get on watching A24 films. It is a smart horror film where the twists and turns of the plot are set up through clever exposition and visual clues rather than tacked on monologues where all the information is passed on to you. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the film, to give any kind of plot synopsis takes away from the experience of the film due to the story the film is telling, but I will try my best. The film opens at the funeral of Ellen Graham, the grandmother of the Graham family. The family clearly are a bit distanced from the grandmother, especially her daughter Annie, played brilliantly by Toni Collette. Annie's daughter Charlie, played by Milly Shapiro, has the closest relationship with her grandmother, but even she is distanced from her. Other than this, to tell you anymore would be to ruin the film.
I have already touched on Toni Collette's performance, but I feel like my short statement does not give enough credit. Collette gives a fantastic performance in the film. She is totally engrossing the entire time and carries the film with her performance. She is able to give a performance which a once portrays grief, anger, despair, fear and even moments of levity and happiness and it is totally gripping. She is easily the best part of the film and a lot of credit has to go to her for the quality of the film. The other performances are strong. Alex Wolff and Gabriele Byrne give good performances as the son and father respectively, as does Shapiro as Charlie, but all are overshadowed by the performance of Collette.
Despite my glowing praise thus far there are some problems with the film. It is, as to be expected in a 21st century horror film, rather cliched. It uses tropes such as the scary child, jump scares, a very genre specific soundtrack, etc. These additions to the film do make it seem at times like just another run of the mill horror. But it is in the way that these clichés and tropes are used that puts Hereditary a step above many other horrors of the last few years, especially in its use of jump scares. The jump scares are earned through the building of tension and fear, and not just put in to elicit a reaction from the audience. The real scares in the film are not made through the use of jump scares, but instead the use of lighting and sound editing to compliment the scary images that are being shown to the audience. Often times the scares are hidden in the corner of the frame, obscured from view just enough so that you question if it was ever really there, and it scares like that which really get me. The build-up of tension to a breaking point before it snaps and you get that reaction of the scared audience without having to resort to loid noises and images popping into frame.
With Hereditary director Ari Aster has created an extremely well made and genuinely scary horror film for the 21st century. It continues the trend of great horror films that have been made in recent years and I hope this trend continues because if Hereditary is anything to go by the future of the genre is very bright indeed. I will end this review with possibly the biggest endorsement I can give this film. It actually scared me. I mean legitimately scared me. That may not sound out of the ordinary for a horror film, but I have long said that The Shining (1980) ruined horror films for me as since I saw that film I have rarely been scared by a film. Hereditary is one of the exceptions to this.
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