Hereditary
William Jenkins 
Saw this movie twice in theaters when it came out in 2018 and I’ve been revisiting it a lot now that it’s in constant rotation on Showtime. It’s so immaculately constructed that I notice new details every time.
I think it’s the scariest English-language movie of the past 40 years. Any other fans?
| by Anonymous | reply 60 | November 3, 2021 11:35 PM |
I’m a fan but it’s way too long and needs editing better.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 3, 2021 6:50 AM |
[spoilers]
The beheading scene is one of the most shocking scenes I have ever seen in film. I was convinced it was a dream sequence. While the middle dragged, the end saved it. Not the kind of horror film that Betty and Bob Beercan (to steal a RuPaulism) will like, but that is what makes it great.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 3, 2021 9:07 AM |
Bump for scary movie season
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | October 28, 2021 12:41 PM |
The beheading scene shocked me so badly, especially the thought of what the mother would have gone through discovering it, that I had to stop the movie for a bit. I don’t know if I could have stayed if I’d seen it in a theater.
I really disliked the elaborate supernatural explanation behind everything - the last 1/3 of the film made me roll my eyes.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | October 28, 2021 12:47 PM |
I didn't find it particularly scary (same with It Follows and The Babadook), although exceedingly creepy and unsettling. Hereditary was a brilliant movie. Toni Collette can act circles around most any Hollywood diva (Meryl "I can do accents!" Streep), and that dining room scene was something out of O'Neill -- absolutely haunting on an emotional level. I see the film as primarily a drama first and horror/thriller second. It's like Ordinary People with both inner and outer demons.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | October 28, 2021 12:48 PM |
The ending scene (especially the music) really creeped me out. I watched this on my phone. No way I could have sat through this in a theatre.
Gabriel Byrne is hot btw.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | October 28, 2021 12:51 PM |
Great movie that has one major flaw: the casting of the son. He looks nothing like either Colette or Byrne to the point that I figured the twist was that he was adopted, and the lineage ended with his sister.
Sorry for Alex Wolf, who was good, but it just took me right out of the movie.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | October 28, 2021 12:54 PM |
The decapitation and dinner argument were the two stand out scenes for me. I couldn't take anything Toni floating around seriously.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | October 29, 2021 2:26 AM |
[quote]Great movie that has one major flaw: the casting of the son. He looks nothing like either Colette or Byrne to the point that I figured the twist was that he was adopted, and the lineage ended with his sister.
He's not adopted.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | October 29, 2021 4:16 AM |
I haven't seen Hereditary yet, but I absolutely love the other movie Ari Aster directed, Midsommar,
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | October 29, 2021 4:46 AM |
The decapitation was the single most shocking horror film moment I've seen in at least 20 or 30 years. The fact that they went there and so soon reminded me of Drew Barrymore's sudden departure in Scream. I think some moments in the script work better than others, but it keeps such a great scary mood the entire time and Toni Collette has never been better. I was truly shocked when she didn't get an Oscar nom for her performance. Even people who didn't like the movie came out of it thinking she deserved something for what she did. It's become one of my favorite performances of all time. No vanity, so raw and filled with emotion. You just feel for her.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | October 29, 2021 5:23 AM |
This movie creeped me out so badly that I really don't want to see it again. The dinner table scene was so fantastic, such great acting!
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | October 29, 2021 5:33 AM |
The movie was superb all the way around. I also loved Ann Dowd, she’s great in everything.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | October 29, 2021 5:34 AM |
R9 Wolff also played Gabriel Byrne’s son on In Treatment, so clearly someone didn’t find it too far-fetched.
He doesn’t look like Collette at all but their mother-son rapport (or lack thereof) is so well established, particularly in the scene where he asks for permission to go to the “school barbecue.”
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | October 29, 2021 5:41 AM |
I liked it, but I loved Midsommar. I can't wait to see what Ari Aster comes up with next.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | October 29, 2021 5:50 AM |
They lost me when they made Toni Colette float around like a parade float.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | October 29, 2021 5:59 AM |
I’m a horror movie fanatic and the car accident scene was so disturbing I turned the movie off and was really upset. I ended up finishing the rest of the movie the next day and LOVED it but yes, I have no interest in ever seeing it again.
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | October 29, 2021 6:13 AM |
I think the director based the decapitation scene on a true story, albeit he changed some of the details. But something about a sibling who left their dead sibling in the car overnight. Ugh!
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | October 29, 2021 6:40 AM |
Doesn't the mother slice her head off with a wire?
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | October 29, 2021 6:42 AM |
Ari Aster is quite talented. I remember him making waves with the darkly comic horror short "The Strange Thing About the Johnsons." It was like a precursor to Jordan Peele's films, but it's far darker.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 24 | October 29, 2021 6:48 AM |
[quote]R23 Doesn't the mother slice her head off with a wire?
It’s actually the necklace her mother is seen wearing in the coffin at the memorial service..
A deleted scene made this connection.
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | October 29, 2021 7:14 AM |
No, she slices off her head with a piano wire. When Peter wakes up and is looking for his parents upstairs you can hear the crashing of the keys as the wires are torn off, then when he comes downstairs you briefly see the mangled piano in the foreground.
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | October 29, 2021 12:30 PM |
[quote] I can't wait to see what Ari Aster comes up with next.
He's said his next film is going to be a FOUR hour "comedy horror" starring Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane and Patti LuPone called "Disappointment Blvd".
It already sounds insufferable.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | November 1, 2021 12:50 PM |
Well, so many of us live quite adjacent to Disappointment Blvd., we’ll watch.
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | November 1, 2021 3:51 PM |
I always thought it was so weird that the mother made the son take the daughter to a HS party where she had no business being. Was the daughter special needs?
I found the movie more sad than scary. The family was so dysfunctional.
| by Anonymous | reply 29 | November 1, 2021 4:05 PM |
An amazing film. One of the greatest horror films of the 21st century for sure. There are so many powerful scenes that give me chills and bring me to tears which doesn't happen very often during horror movies. Toni Collette did a fantastic job and I can see why everyone praises her performance so much. I agree with the poster who said Alex Wolff looks nothing like either parent. I actually thought he was Arabic for a while, but he is not. But his performance is so great that I don't mind the lack of familial resemblance. Everyone involved did an excellent job.
| by Anonymous | reply 30 | November 1, 2021 5:16 PM |
Toni Collette and Alex Wolff both have the same birthday, which happens to be today.
| by Anonymous | reply 31 | November 1, 2021 5:19 PM |
I was curious when I heard the early positive word of mouth but when I saw from the trailer it was a family of origin story I refrained.
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | November 1, 2021 5:24 PM |
Hereditary is a fable about generational silence in the face of mental illness. The movie takes on a deeper meaning once you realize this. The movie is basically August: Osage County disguised as a horror film.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 33 | November 1, 2021 5:40 PM |
I’m in the minority. I hated this. I spent more time laughing at the cheesy special effects than I did being scared or creeped out.
| by Anonymous | reply 34 | November 1, 2021 5:49 PM |
The movie sucked. I kept waiting for the scary part to happen, I laughed when the retarded sister died.
| by Anonymous | reply 35 | November 1, 2021 5:54 PM |
R35 Congratulations. You must be a big tough badass since a movie that critics thought were scary didn't faze you. You can give Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone a run for their money.
| by Anonymous | reply 37 | November 1, 2021 5:57 PM |
Dude, it wasn't scary at all. I'm sorry you are all butthurt but I watched the movie sober expecting to be scared, It didn't happen. Toni Collette overacting, Bryne acted like he was on downers, King Pawan looked HIGH all the time. I expected to be scared, but it was FUNNY. I was more worried about the cute dog. The critics were wrong. The critics must have been stoned or on mushrooms.
| by Anonymous | reply 38 | November 1, 2021 8:05 PM |
Hereditary is ultimately garbage. Yes, I know a lot of people love it, but it’s derivative and pretentious and Aster is a HACK as a writer-director.
Although there’s a fuck-ton of praise for this movie online, you can also find very well articulated criticisms of it, too.
Midsommar was even worse, somehow.
Aster is a young Millennial dork who admires a lot of horror films, borrows heavily from them, and presents his pastiche in a super-serious, ponderous way that signals to viewers, “This is a PSYCHOLOGICAL horror film for smart people. Soak up my excruciatingly slow dolly shots, marinate in my symbolism. Also here is a loud shock scene of graphic violence that maybe you weren’t expecting and that I think is funny, LOL.”
He wants to be a Polanski or a Haneke, but he doesn’t quite have the skills to pull it off. He has however succeeded in hoodwinking a lot of people.
| by Anonymous | reply 39 | November 1, 2021 8:49 PM |
Here’s a review of Midsommar I agree with.
I should add that a lot of the acting in his two films is very good, but I don’t necessarily think Toni Collette in Hereditary is the greatest performance ever.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 40 | November 1, 2021 8:52 PM |
I can't tell other people what to find scary but I will say that as a seasoned horror veteran I laughed at everything in the last 15 minutes of Hereditary. The hijinks, including the mother cutting her head off, were right out of one of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies, but the Raimi movies are intentionally funny while I don't think Aster was going for laughs. That said, I did like a lot of the movie leading up to it, including Toni's performance.
| by Anonymous | reply 41 | November 1, 2021 10:25 PM |
I didn’t expect the film to be scary, per say. I don’t associate Toni Colette and Gabriel Byrne with slasher films, and the title HEREDITARY isn’t scary; it’s almost scholarly.
I thought it would be eerie, and it was. My problem was I didn’t buy into the paranormal aspect (maybe because I thought everything could be explained away by mental illness) so by the end when things got really crazy I was like “?!?!?! They’re honestly saying witches have power??? Where am I???”
But that’s my own bias… I don’t think it’s a filmmaking problem.
Great acting, anyway, which is what I mostly care about. (In addition to overall concept.)
| by Anonymous | reply 42 | November 2, 2021 1:20 AM |
It’s a writing problem, R42. The bottom line is that Hereditary does not “earn” its ending. It seems so ridiculous; it basically comes from nowhere. And yes, I get that it’s supposedly foreshadowed all along, but not in an effective way, like in Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives, where the endings feel inevitable.
Fans of these Aster movies will claim that a sophisticated viewer who’s paying attention will have seen the ending coming. That’s true for Midsommar, but not for Hereditary.
I do think the telephone pole decapitation was very well done. You’re focused on the allergic reaction, the dynamics between son and parents and brother and daughter, and you don’t see it coming, especially not so early in the movie. I’ll give Aster credit for that one.
| by Anonymous | reply 43 | November 2, 2021 2:45 AM |
It's not horror. It's a dark psychological "horror-esque" type drama. I'm not sure what genre you would categorize this film.
| by Anonymous | reply 44 | November 2, 2021 3:37 AM |
R24 I wouldn't call it darkly comic. What on earth did you find funny about it?
| by Anonymous | reply 45 | November 2, 2021 5:23 AM |
I'm always baffled by the admiration for this movie. I hated everything about it, including Toni Colette's atrocious performance.
| by Anonymous | reply 46 | November 2, 2021 5:28 AM |
I saw this in the theatres. I was into it through the plot twist with the sister. And, then, after that, it lost me.
| by Anonymous | reply 47 | November 2, 2021 5:31 AM |
[quote] I hated everything about it
You don’t know what hatred is, r46.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 48 | November 2, 2021 6:02 AM |
I also agree, didn’t think it was scary and I saw it in the movie theater. I absolutely hated Midsommar, what a piece of shit.
| by Anonymous | reply 49 | November 2, 2021 7:01 AM |
I loved Hereditary, and it was the first horror movie I really enjoyed that was made in the 21st century. It's exciting when a director dares to be bold and theatrical, as Aster is with the use of the miniature homes and the set pieces involving the decapitation, the mother's immediate grief, and head banging at school scene. At first, I was disappointed that there was no emotional connection between the reborn demon and his followers in the final scene, but then I realized that it really would have been Rosemary's Baby with that ending. I giggled at Toni Collette turning into Margaret White at the end, then flying, then cutting off her own head-- but I also thought it was scary and aesthetically fitting
I find Ari Aster to be outrageously sexy.
Midsommar was okay. Will Poulter stole the show as the vaping assshole (he is super cute in Dopesick BTW). And Jack Reynor has a nice penis.
| by Anonymous | reply 50 | November 2, 2021 7:26 AM |
Dreary and unscary. The house was so dark you wanted to shout out turn a light on. No wonder they were so depressed.
| by Anonymous | reply 51 | November 2, 2021 9:09 AM |
I love it, and it's one of my favourite horror films, probably one of my favourite films full stop to be honest. I don't get people who don't get it. The whole thing is so unsettling and filled with dread, and I disagree completely with whoever said earlier in the thread the ending wasn't 'earned'. It was inevitable, and inescapable, and that's what makes the film overall so powerful. They don't know that they are doomed.
| by Anonymous | reply 53 | November 2, 2021 1:05 PM |
These films like Aster's are this generation's type of film because they're bleak and hopeless and there's not even a little bit of joy in them. They're designed to have people leave the theatre feeling miserable, rather than thrilled and/or thoughtful.
| by Anonymous | reply 54 | November 2, 2021 8:38 PM |
Yes, r54, we really all need to watch The Sound of Music again.
| by Anonymous | reply 55 | November 2, 2021 9:18 PM |
[quote] It's not horror. It's a dark psychological "horror-esque" type drama. I'm not sure what genre you would categorize this film.
Supernatural Horror. It’s really no more complicated than that.
If you didn’t make it to the final 1/3 of the film, I could understand maybe not knowing how to categorize it. But supernatural things happen all throughout it.
| by Anonymous | reply 56 | November 2, 2021 11:33 PM |
[quote] I disagree completely with whoever said earlier in the thread the ending wasn't 'earned'. It was inevitable, and inescapable
Explain.
| by Anonymous | reply 57 | November 2, 2021 11:35 PM |
I love it, too. I find it’s a bit of a throwback to the style of some 70s horror. Some of the imagery stayed with me ,one after.
| by Anonymous | reply 58 | November 2, 2021 11:35 PM |
Not what I said at all, R55. You need to learn critical thinking skills.
| by Anonymous | reply 59 | November 3, 2021 12:19 PM |
I thought it was effectively creepy but when it was over I had to Google afterwards to explain the ending. Yes, I’m an idiot.
Toni was great but for me the standout was Alex Wolfe.
| by Anonymous | reply 60 | November 3, 2021 11:35 PM |
