Hereditary (2018) – spoiler free review

So a few weeks ago on a Tuesday afternoon, I went to see Hereditary. Tuesday afternoon being relevant because 1. Meerkats give us half price cinema tickets on a Tuesday (bless them) and 2. because I happened to have the day off work and thought it would be ideal to watch an atmospheric horror film without it being ruined by little teens on triple date night who generally stress me out with their talking, whispering and laughing (THROUGH THE TENSE BITS!). The film started at 2.40pm – all the bastards would still be in school. Hahahahahahahaha.

I actually had fairly high hopes for Hereditary, given the interesting trailer, cast (like, proper actors you know, not just sexy young people) and even the duration which stands at just over two hours long. I mean, a two hour modern horror? There’s got to be some substance in there surely. Hopefully. Well we’ll see.

The story, which I’m assuming most people who care about the movie probably know already, centres around a family (Mum – Toni Collette and Dad – Gabriel Byrne, plus older bro and little sister) who start experiencing disturbing and weird shit shortly after Toni Collette’s mum passes away. It is implied that the grandmother was into some rather strange activities and the film unfolds accordingly.

I thought it was pretty darn excellent. It had some scary moments, some very disturbing moments and never felt run-of-the-mill – important to note in a sea of generic horrors.

It definitely had a story – and a pretty clever not to mention unsettling one at that. It was involved and if I’m being totally honest, after watching it just once, I’m not entirely sure how EVERY tiny little jigsaw piece fit together but generally it made sense and I actually quite enjoy trying to figure it all out anyway – (“so when that happened, it meant that thing from earlier and they did that again because of what that person said – ohhhh, I see!”) – I’m a stickler for wanting every single thing to be coherent to the plot. Makes it so much better.

Oh and I felt for the characters at times which is both nice and a little bit rare in the horror genre. Especially the teenage son and sweet dad Gabriel Byrne (who I used to fancy a bit back in the day – and by ‘back in the day’ I mean, I dunno, the 90s? He still looked pretty good in Ghost Ship and that was 2002).

There are shocking scenes in the first half and there are certainly shocking scenes in the second half too. The film has a good mix of ‘night time creepy’ and ‘woahhhh that is fucked up and gross’ (said in a voice like Samuel L. Jackson). The story itself is quite dark and disturbing and I’m sure upon multiple watches even more layers will be peeled away and realised.

Hereditary was refreshing fun – clever, involved, horrid and definitely scary. Definitely one of the better horror films I’ve seen for a while. I’ll look forward to watching it again and highly recommend you watch it too.