Hereditary movie review - Aussieboyreviews

IS THE TERROR IN HEREDITARY ANY SCARIER THAN AVERAGE HORROR MOVIES?

This chilling and frightening horror film is definitely scarier than the average horror movie. It’s an engaging and psychological, but is fairly slow, too.

Storyline

After the death of her mother, Annie and the rest of the family are stricken with grief. Soon, the family are haunted by strange and disturbing occurrences.

Movie Images

Movie details

Director: Ari Aster
Cast: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Gabriel Byrne
Writer: Ari Aster
Release Date (Australia): 7 June 2018
Runtime: 127 minutes/2h 7m
Genre: Horror, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA
Language: English, Spanish

CONTENT GUIDE (WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS)

Themes (MA15+)

The film contains horror themes and supernatural themes, including scenes of demonic possession and supernatural threat.

Violence (MA15+)

A possessed woman saws through her neck and decapitates herself, accompanied by large spurts of blood.

Coarse Language (M)

The film contains use of the words “f**king” and “s**t”.

Drug Use (M)

There are multiple depictions of people smoking marijuana.

Nudity (M)

The film contains brief depictions of full frontal male and female nudity.

mpaa rating

R (for horror violence, disturbing images, language, drug use and brief graphic nudity)

Aussie boy's thoughts

Ari Aster knows exactly how to execute real terror and chilling moments, but there’s not enough story to accompany those scares. Intelligent, intriguing and tense, Hereditary totally avoids doubt and deserves its place at the top of any heavy-hearted horror fan’s watchlist. It uses all the necessary elements a psychological horror movie truly needs, such as superb performances, brilliant tension and several extremely chilling happenings.

The most clever thing Ari Aster manages to compose in Hereditary’s horror themes is the appealing fact that they completely rely on hair-raising tension and entirely lack the simple jump-scares. Every slow-motioning moment is at least exhilaratingly unsettling, providing audiences with goosebumps and tense body feelings.

The performances are masterly realistic and the pace frequently visits nightmarish situations. Unfortunately, the amount of horror and tension commonly takes over the story behind the supernatural dread. There’s too much scares and not enough story. The lack of plot ideas only connects with the slow pacing.

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