Hereditary

Hereditary

The newest release from A24, everyone's favorite indie movie studio and new standard for consistent film quality, Hereditary is one of the couple of critically-acclaimed horror films we get every other year or so, in the vain of It Follows, The Babadook, and (my favorite) The Witch. Mostly a tense, anxiety-ridden family drama, people who enter this film expecting a non-stop scare-fest will have to be very, very patient for what is inarguably a great payoff.

I'm not gonna go into details on this one, because going into it blind made it all the more fun, but I'll quickly brush over the things I enjoyed: Toni Colette deserves an Oscar (as is always the case, but especially here), Alex Wolff is better than I ever thought he could be (I haven't seen him since The Naked Brothers Band), the cinematography more than once had me thinking "how did they do that?!" which is the greatest compliment I can think of, the music (while fairly traditional for a horror film) is very effective, and the story (while getting convoluted towards the end there) had me fully and consistently engaged and surprised the whole way through.

Again, people who are going out for a fun horror movie night should know that the scares aren't cheap or loud, they're quietly haunting and creatively disturbing, using every element of filmmaking available to create a full, horrific experience that everyone will be talking about this year. Go see it (if you dare)!