Hereditary - 2018 Horror Film

I liked most of this film, except for the ending which I found quite weird. I started a thread at another forum the week after the film was released, but no one replied to it. I don't go there anymore.

 

Yep, great movie except for that Burger King ending...

 

Pretty scary when most horror movies ARE just make believe. "Alien", "The Exorcist", Halloween", "The Haunting" (the original film), etc. need I go on?

 

The first Halloween and Alien were not supernatural and very effective. I agree that “make believe” was a poor choice of words to convey my point. Even movies like the haunting can make me jump in my seat, but they are so untethered to the physical world I live in that there is not much fear created.

 

With many WTF moments throughout the course of the film, I thoroughly enjoyed this "supernatural" thriller. That is, up to the last 5-10 minutes of the film, where it turned into a "neatly packaged, let's give a cheesy, not-so-clever explanation" ending to the film.

 

Finally got around to seeing Hereditary which had a genuinely creepy atmosphere but there were way too many subtle details that were never explained.

I also saw Mandy. Slow and trippy bathed in red.

 

I didn't like Hereditary because I felt it was exploitive the way they used the "unusual looking" little girl. Her appearance is largely what made the film effectively creepy, imo.

 

Great movie...for about 3/4 of the running time. Then it turned into complete nonsense...what a waste. They took a great family drama with some superb acting and turned it into complete schlock.

 

Because of the supernatural angle?

 

A family drama? I didn't feel that at all.

There is a review on IMDB that does a really good job at explaining the film. It's titled "Seen It Twice and I Now Get It". I think the story deserves more credit than some folks are giving it.

I kind of agree with @prognastycator. I haven't watched many horror movies so this year I watched a bunch. From your list all I saw was The Exorcist. Frankly, I found most of them to be funny, not scary - including The Exorcist. And I don't believe they were supposed to be funny.

I think Hereditary is more effective than most horror films because for most of it we aren't sure what exactly is going on. The more mystery, the better.

Not my favorite genre to be honest, because for what I want - the mystery aspect - the thriller/suspense genre is much more effective and it doesn't have to resort to the extreme lengths horror does to put fear into the viewer.

 

I felt a twinge of that, too, until I saw her being interviewed a few times and read her thoughts and her parents. And she's doing just fine with her career, she did this film cause she wanted to.

Plus:

Spoiler: SPOILER

She dies 1/4 of the way into the movie - so you're saying that 3/4 of it had no suspense?

 

missed it! going to check it out...my wife will love this!

 

You say that now . . .

 

why?

 

Well, I don't know your wife, I know a little bit about what you like from your movie threads - this one is just . . . umm . . . I'm just going to say you haven't seen another movie like it.

I don't want to spoil anything for either of you and by all means I recommend it.
I guess just be aware this isn't your typical horror film by a long shot. It's very hard to explain: You know how some horror movies have tons of sickening blood and gore? What if there was a horror movie that had almost unending, sickening, bloodless, mental and spiritual gore?
That's my take on it - and I thought it was brilliant. I also never want to see it again.
Enjoy!

 

thanks for the tip...now I have to see this...; ) years ago i was into this kind of movie...not much anymore, but...

 

Can’t explain why one would find The Exorcist funny except the world we live in now. Perhaps it’s a generational thing or the fact that it’s supernatural in. Stare. Lots of folks have problems with supernatural based horror films but the tropes often times can seem funny simply because it’s so far outside of our experience. I had someone tell me Alien was boring because it was designed to create a lingering slow burn sense of dread. I think that horror films, supernatural thrillers and the like have been badly damaged by a shift to immediate pay off.

That’s my take anyway. I still find The Exorcist creepy as hell. I can’t speak as to why someone would find these films funny. They aren’t meant to be nor are they IMHO. Friendkin and Beatty use the film to address the essence of faith and doubt and how it impacts one man. It’s still a pretty complex drama particularly for what is considered a horror movie. We live in a much more rational age where people have a hard time suspending disbelief.

 

I agree that both (although my son when he finally saw Halloween —the original — thought it was pretty tame) work the horror vibe w/o going down the supernatural route. I think most folks that dislike the film do so because it plays slight of hand within the tropes of the genre focusing on being one thing and then becoming another. Like The Sixth Sense, it uses the tropes of the genre to set up different expectations.

I guess we can blame all of this on Hitchcock going back to Psycho and—even earlier—Stage Fright where he played with the genre conventions. People hated Stage Fright (not everyone but a lot) because he played with visual storytelling in an unusual way.

 

The problem with 'Halloween' is that if you remove the Creepy Music(and all Sound Effects) from the Movie, it is not really that scary. That being said, I love 'Halloween', but it does rely on the Music to set the Spooky, Creepy atmosphere-IMO, otherwise would just be an Average Movie in the Horror Genre.

 

I may have to rethink this decision! LOL

 

That and the use of POV shots which adds to the creepy atmosphere. Carpenter could be a great minimalist when he wanted to be or when he ws forced to be.

It's interesting to watch the shower scene without Herrmann's score. Hitch wanted it silent but Herrmann had it shown to him with and without the music and he had to admit it had more of an impact with the music.

 

I suppose. I mean, I'm not against a good supernatural story (i.e. Poltergeist, Blair Witch, etc) but this one just seemed schlocky.

SPOILERS: It seemed to possibly be a story about schizophrenia or some other mental illness that could've been hereditary but the whole 180 degree turn it took with it all being about the invocation of King Paimon...just seemed stupid to me and it cheapened what preceded it.

 

SPOILER The mental illness and supernatural events were initmately tied together and both the result of hereditary. You've tried to make this into two separate stories - and it's not.

 

There are plenty of articles like the one cited above where the film is explained in depth - I think it's almost a necessity to read one or more of them to actually take it all in.

There seems to be a fair amount of people who watched the movie and at some point forgot it was a horror film. They got sucked into the family drama - as was intended - without paying attention to the details that were slowly explaining the actual source of this drama and why it was getting more and more tense and crazy.

The Director wasn't continually wasting time throwing red herrings around and then just took the whole film into a new and shocking supernatural direction and ending. All of it was there, all the time.

Some get riled when you deliberatly play with their expectations - but, how boring would a film be if it simply unfolded as you expect. This is why so many horror fans hated it, they have expectations of the whole genre and expect to be scared a few times in the same ways - it's pretty much just, ok, who's going to die first, how creative will their torture be, and what power tool will they eventually be killed with.

If you didn't like the movie or liked it except for the ending, that's fine, you like what you like. I do have trouble with some of the explanations as to WHY these elements or the movie as a whole didn't work for you.

 

this is exactly how i feel.