But those gems are not gone, merely hidden in the rough. Horror has stepped its game up in recent memory, with this year alone giving us the fantastic A Quiet Place. Distributor A24 has waged its own chips in the horror realm, driving us closer to the days of literal and figurative horror, and the release of their latest film, newcomer Ari Aster's Hereditary, may be the closest thing yet to becoming that horror classic of a generation.
Hereditary opens very uniquely, with the obituary of Graham family matriarch Ellen, survived by her daughter Annie, Annie's husband Steve, and her grandchildren Peter and Charlie. From initial appearances, nothing seems to be out of the ordinary between them: As the four of them prep for the funeral service, they seem like the ideal, happy, tightly-knit family. But as Annie takes to the podium to deliver her mother's eulogy, what should be a day to celebrate the accomplishments of a woman's life, takes a much more mysterious energy. As Annie attempts to put her words together, there's very little feeling of grief on her face or in her tone. Clearly this was not a strong bond between mother and daughter, suggesting that it drove rifts between the rest of the family, and cemented very bad habits to follow.
And that lack of grief, it's no accident. At some level, it feels as if Annie hardly knew her own mother at all, with how much emphasis was placed on personal boundaries, and her mother's usual habit of keeping to herself. That connection has left noticeable scars on Annie's well-being, and her interaction with her family. Her favorite hobby is her career of designing miniatures, which directly emulates Annie's way of thinking: Orderly and meticulous, but static, and struggling to cope with the pressures and catastrophe of the outside world. As beautiful they are in construction, they are also a figure of pure negativity, built most often as some idealized retelling of her life story, with an added bitterness driving her sculpting.
As severed as the connection may be, much of her mother's mystery and mental breaks have been passed directly onto Annie like a gene, hence the film's title. And so much of this film keenly taps into that idea of an unbroken chain, of children becoming inherently similar to their parents by adopting their depression, and parents crafting literal and figurative monsters out of their children. And in suppressing her grief, Annie's resentment begins to come out in explosive ways, fuming at her family, breaking into inexplicable fits of sobbing, and unable to let the past fade away like picking at old wounds. Anchoring all of it is Toni Colette's phenomenal central performance, giving a convincing portrayal of a grief-stricken parent, and hiding much sinister intentions and devastation behind that cracking motherly visage.
And I say it without hyperbole, Hereditary is one heart-pounding, terrifying sit. The film is remarkably wise in how it crafts and leads into those bigger scares, as much of the movie feels more keen on dread than outright horror. It is all about the lingering sense of claustrophobia, of the unnerving sensation of being followed even when no one is behind you, of even those familiar staples of our day being a figure of something deadly underneath, and the lingering deeds of our past come back to haunt us. And it stretches to more than just Annie, as even her son Peter (a superb Alex Wolff) begins to crumble under the torment of his sins manifesting in eerie ways, while her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) struggles to make sense and rationalize everything happening around her. And as the players delve deeper down into the rabbit hole, their distinction between reality and the mind grow increasingly blurred, as the supernatural takes a progressive hold on the house, preying upon their weaknesses in their depression and craving bloodshed as payment. And jump scares? I recall two big ones in the whole two hour film, and that's it. Otherwise, it is all mind tricks and atmosphere doing the frights. Kudos, movie!
With all of this in mind, I was seriously tempted to crown Hereditary as the year's best film. Alas, it's final scene may have been one straw too many. Without giving anything away, it serves to act as the final encapsulation of those genetic inheritances burdening future generations within family, but I feel like this last scene is played in such a goofy way, and delivers that final message so on the nose, it honestly feels like a step taken too far. It's probably not something I can easily digest on first viewing, but I almost wish the film opted for a more ambiguous approach.
(UPDATE: In time for my upcoming best and worst of the year lists, I finally gave the film a much needed rewatch, and does it ever improve. While I still find the ending literal and on the nose, this movie really is just that outstanding that it doesn't matter. So if my feelings weren't changed, they were at least mitigated.)
As it stands, it's still an outstanding film from a bravura first timer in Ari Aster. It is genuinely frightening and horrifying in a way that very few (if any) films in the last decade have ever been able to capture, using its central topic of grief eating away at the soul, rendering it and the memory of the remembered as a decayed and perverted abomination, and is centered by what's likely to remain some of the year's finest performances. It truly is the next great horror classic we deserve. But silly as it sounds, I just wish I could deem it "The year's" best, instead of settling for "One of the year's" best.
***** / *****
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