Jacob Cunningham’s review published on Letterboxd:
Uhhh what to heck?
Where do I even begin with Hereditary. Touted in marketing as “one of the scariest movies ever made”, this was always gonna fall victim to people’s expectations. I don’t buy into that sort of thing, and I love A24’s previous horror-type fare like The Witch and It Comes At Night, so I knew what to expect.
It’s the feature directorial debut of Ari Aster, and boy what a confident one! It’s centers around a family that obviously has some problems, but there’s some deep-rooted dysfunction that we learn more about as it goes on. Starring Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Gabriel Byrne and newcomer Milly Shapiro, Hereditary is a nasty look at grief, mental illness, the aforementioned family dysfunction and all kinds of other shit.
I couldn’t even begin to describe the plot of this movie, but it’s full of surprises, some good some bad. It’s better off going in knowing nothing at all.
I loved Hereditary. Not as a horror movie, but as drama about family and grief.
I’m not gonna say it fails as a horror movie, it’s extremely well-directed and atmospheric, but it just not scary. That’s not a dealbreaker, but it was a little disappointing in that regard.
I wasn’t expecting the scariest movie of all time, but I was definitely hoping for some frights, of which I got none. This is because the third act kinda goes off the rails. I can’t give anything away, but a lot of stuff happens that came off really goofy, and did not really mesh with all the brilliant stuff the first half set up. I was still enjoying myself, but after the halfway point I just didn’t feel any tension.
The first half though is a borderline masterpiece. The complicated family dynamics at play, coupled with the brilliant performances, especially from Wolff and Collette, make for riveting, chilling stuff that I just wanted more of.
What I’m saying is, Hereditary stops being scary the moment it becomes a horror movie.