Hereditary

A few clichés turned upside down, a few others confirmed in the most unpleasant form possible. An excellent cast of actors, so inconspicuous for so long that in key moments they are terrifyingly precise. But what will never leave my mind are those quiet jolts, when the sound engineer doesn't need to slam the door and the composer doesn't need to pluck three strings on the violin. Just at the right moment, the right object, outline, or cloth appears and I'm immediately having fits, wondering if the fabric has suffered any damage. Plot-wise, Ari Aster doesn't discover anything new, but that path full of hints and clues that become completely clear after you've seen it all the way through has something to it, and the atmosphere of life among the dollhouses transformed into a sense of being present in one of them is one of those million-dollar creative ideas that come once in a career. For me, Hereditary is incomparable, both in its rare combination of idea and execution, and in the fact that no one will ever bring me the same level of tense anticipation. (2021-06-28)

Going through many of the reactions, I'm thinking that horror filmmakers couldn't possibly want anything more than scandalized reviews about the fact that the audience found out at the end that they were actually watching an occult horror film. I'll go for five after the third viewing, I promise. It's really just a matter of tightening a few screws and trying to teach Alex Wolff to cry so we can have a future horror classic to show for it. I'm looking forward to Midsommar like a kid. (2019-07-14)

At first a very good and a pleasantly different atmosphere compared to everything called horror today - unexpected things were happening, and I didn't dare guess what would come next. But over time... The representative of the son was becoming more unbearable and his bouts of crying seemed like a parody, the whole big secret didn't make a lot of sense to me and didn't particularly shock me, and the bloody and the stretched ending downright bothered me. This is not the second Witch, and certainly not the second Exorcist. (2018-11-25)

Beautifully nasty, dark, stifling, chilling. Something few people will appreciate as much as the knowledgeable horror fans. In Hereditary you need to be able to enjoy the slow, atmospheric, unsettling and emotionally tense first half (or rather, three quarters) as much as the literal (beautiful, if you can call it that) horror atrocities into which the film dives in the end. Half the people will say that it’s slow and lacking cheap attractions (“where are the jump scares?”), while the other half will lament that it didn’t stick to only hints all the way. I love how this film portrays the broken relationships in that family. I love how the director, with only one sound, is able to generate a deeper awful feeling than a dozen jump scares and gore scenes of other films. I love how the actors (excellent, all of them), with just one look and expression, managed to make me shiver and tremble. I haven’t felt so permanently nervous in film in a long time. And last but not least, the advertising campaign also deserves praise for being able to be attractive without giving almost anything away. I strongly advise potential viewers against reading any random comment about this film, because sooner or later, some idiot will say something that you really don’t want to know; the moment when I knew this the film hooked up, and I realised wasn’t watching your average overrated horror indie flick that’s forgotten after a year. Thanks to Planet Dark for the early preview at Kino pilotů, free of any random teenagers going to the multiplex for the new James Wan movie. (2018-06-29)

Hereditary is a horror film for a slightly more discerning viewer who does not mind the sluggish pace and absence of genre clichès and jump-scares, but conversely appreciates the deeper dialogue and innovative way of narrating an otherwise traditional horror story. The film has a minimalist, almost ever-present and disturbing soundtrack, as well as original visual games that involve placing the characters in a space with a symbolically surreal approach to the scene of horror that takes place (the cottage, dummies). It’s not quite a mainstream genre movie with the depth of a full-fledged psychological drama of a family with a really long-kept secret. Except that the revelation of said secret did not shake me as much as I had expected after all that drama. (2018-07-18)