#screentester

Can older iPhone 6 models still be tested?

Ari Aster, the writer and director of Hereditary, admitted that he had written at least nine other scripts prior to the film but couldn’t gain finance and couldn’t afford to finance them himself. "So [he] figured it would be easier to get a horror film financed, a suspicion that was actually validated" when he put forward Hereditary to whoever it was that ponied up the cash.

Would you think of this as a good start for a film that wants to be taken seriously? Rather than showing a family growing stronger over loss or banding together to fight evil, Aster “wanted to make a film about grief and trauma that showed the corrosive effect they could have on a family.” It does sound promising, a well suited idea for a horror film where the audience want the protagonists to survive but don’t know for a long time who to trust or where the problem is coming from. Admittedly, there were many great moments in Hereditary where viewers can feel tension building, such as where foreshadowing in the form of animal decapitation is used, or where Charlie (Milly – Amelia Lee – Shapiro) is one of the weirdest, creepiest kids ever (these two things may or may not be connected.)

But. Hereditary really lets the audience down by becoming just another slow burning film about a religious cult which doesn’t quite make much sense, doesn’t really explain the cult’s development and certainly doesn’t explain why anyone would want to be in the cult. There’s some vague references to random witchcraft books and symbols, male offspring and lots of candles scattered about. Yet the film provides no real explanation of what’s going on, apart from the fact that before now Grandma – whose funeral opens the film – was possibly host to a spirit/demon and (eventually, 5 minutes before the end) that the demon is looking for a healthy male host and wanting to keep it in the family – well, there was a hint in the title...

This is really disappointing in that the first half of the movie seems to be building to something incredibly sinister along the lines of complete psychological breakdown/s. There’s also a fantastic scene with a high-speed car ride to get you excited but from there the engine cuts out a bit. Certainly, conveying a shocking realistic psychological trauma caused by extreme grief and stress would be more interesting than just copying and cutting together segments of and concepts from iconic films like The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby and Don’t Look Now. Annie’s despair and tragic past really do make the audience hope she’s not the cause of it all, that she’s not psychologically disturbed and that if she is, someone will help her. Collette’s portrayal of this character as with all her work is skilful – she revels in playing a character that allows her to show several layers and in which she engages the full range of her facial expression. She is the concerned and wounded mum, but also the dangerous mum, the depressed artist, the anxiety-ridden traumatised disconnected wife, the naïve woman who takes advice about séances from strangers. Umm yeah. My point is, if it had turned out that one or several members of the family had severe mental disorders, psychological illnesses that caused them to carry out horrific, unimaginable actions against their own family and others around them, the film would actually be much scarier. Instead, the far-fetched, formulaic satanic cult default is utilised and the film just becomes farcical.

Upon reading more about the film and the characters after watching, I discovered that apparently the father, Steven (played by Gabriel Byrne), is meant to be a psychotherapist (I don’t believe this is mentioned at all throughout the film.) My viewing buddy and I discussed numerous times throughout the film that if you were a loving, caring husband, surely you would have taken your wife and children to see a therapist by now! Turns out he thought he had it under control but in actuality must have gained his qualifications from ‘Hollywood Upstairs Medical College’ because he wasn’t able to diagnose a case of my-whole-family-has-been-possessed-by-one-of-the-guards-of-hell-itis or at least recognised that they were in great distress and that he needed to do something. Doesn’t seem too plausible for a psychotherapist.

By the time Toni Collette is decapitating herself with a piece of wire whilst levitating, it’s kind of hard to tell who is meant to be possessed and therefore who the bad guy is (all of the family except Charcoal Dad have had a go). This moment, whilst trying very hard to be shocking, manages instead to come across - at least to two viewers, 100% of the sample audience in this case - as funny. Most of the other characters in the film have been decapitated, so here is poor Annie Graham, just wanting to get in on the family fun.

The film originally came in at 3 hours long and Aster states that there were “about 30 scenes that are on the cutting room floor that are really all just in service of character development.” Perhaps if they had edited a little more carefully, the plot lines may have made more sense in the theatrical release. Aster continues on, acknowledging that “The actors were so fantastic that they were able to do a lot with a little.” He’s right. He should stick to directing rather than writing. Through directing he will continue to be able to create atmosphere and an aesthetically interesting mise en scene through colour palette, shot style and guiding actor movement. The cinematography as a whole was impressive and was supported by some intense emotion and tension developed also through musical score but the writing and final product in terms of plot left much to be desired.

The film has been labelled ‘scariest horror film of 2018’ and it has also been stated that “perhaps every era gets the horror movies it doesn’t yet know it deserves,” but no, it is not particularly scary and it would be very surprising if we are to look back 20 years from now and view Hereditary as iconic. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.  

2 kernels

Read about and listen to some of the score here Other references