PREAMBLE: Before I begin with the article proper I need to address a few things, the elitism of the people who liked this movie vs those who did not. Before we go any further let me say firmly that I did NOT like this movie at all. It was well acted, well directed, well shot and well written for what it was. But this movie presented its self as a horror movie a movie in which its intentions are to scare its viewer and I was not scared. I judge scared based on whether or not I'm capable of sleeping calmly at night and while I didn't sleep calmly, that was mostly due to my son getting up every 15 minutes as opposed to any psychological distressed the film attempted to inflict upon me.
The reason I'm stating all of this here in this preamble is because it seems those who liked this movie believe their tastes in horror films are better while others who did not like this movie are merely looking for cheap scares (jump scares, slashers, torture porn and the like)...ya know bottom barrel stuff, and that those who didn't like this movie are merely teenagers who don't know good horror or they just didn't understand the movie. Let me refute those in my case: I hate jump scares because they're not scary they're an activation of your fight or flight mechanism in your brain, that doesn't invoke fear it just means you were startled, surprised, caught off guard. I've ALWAYS hated slasher movies, Freddy Kruger, Jason, Chucky, Michael Myers, they're all bad jokes to me and they're all goofy to me. I can't take any of them seriously, even as a kid those films never scared me. Freddy made WAY too many jokes, Chucky's scream always made me laugh and Jason just looked too damn cool to for me to be afraid of him. Torture porn, I'll admit it, I enjoy the "Saw" films, not because they're scary but I love the traps and eventually the filmmakers caught onto that as well. But films like "Hostel" and all the others similar...no...watching someone get tortured for 2 hours doesn't sound appealing to me at all.
Lastly, I did understand the film completely, I have no misunderstandings about what I just watched, and I'll prove that not only when I discuss the film with spoilers but when I offer a critique on what I think would have improved the film, in my opinion. In conclusion, if you enjoyed this film, that's wonderful! I'm so glad you did. This film has found its audience and you can say that's you. I did not and that doesn't give you the ability to belittle anyone's opinion by assuming things about them. Horror is an EXTREMELY difficult genre to write and I applaud Ari Aster in writing something that many people enjoyed. That being said I did not and if you'd like to know why I'm gonna tell you. But bear in mind, opinions are subjective and I'm going to explain why this movie didn't work for me. Spoilers abound, enjoy.
So "Hereditary" tales the story of the Graham family. After the death of Ellen, Annie's mother, Annie starts to peel back layers of her family's past and uncovers a dark secret that changes the life of her entire family. That's the film in a nutshell without giving too much away. I know I said there would be spoilers, I'm getting to those. Here comes another preamble.
PREAMBLE: I have a hard time finding demons scary, which you would think is strange considering I actually believe they exist. If I actually believe they exist then why am I not terrified, because I believe in a power that's far superior to demons. I'm a Christian, I've stated that many times on this blog in previous articles, and before you stop reading NO this is not an attempt to evangelize to you, you just need to know this about me if you're gonna understand my reasoning for not enjoying this film. Whenever a demon is introduced in horror movies, it's usually through the main characters doing some occult B.S. that ultimately welcomes the demon in. Annie did this with the seance', and while she was under the impression she was speaking to Charlie, she was allowing Paimon to enter their home.
It seems whenever horror movies introduce demons in movies it always results in the characters acting COMPLETELY insane and contorting their bodies and faces...and of course the obligatory "I'M ON THE CEILING IN THE CORNER!" Shot.
 |
| "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can..." |
And I just can't take it seriously at that point because they welcomed this thing. As a Christian we're told not to mess with mediums or anyone who claims to communicate with the dead because they're actually not, they're communicating with demons, so whenever someone brings a spirit board into a movie or has a seance' even with innocent intentions, as a Christian I know this will inevitably lead to something bad and I instantly don't care about the characters at this point. Even movies back me up on this point as there are very few films in which characters do anything good with a spirit board. It happened in "Paranormal Activity" when the medium told them not to buy a spirit board...and then the idiot goes and buys a spirit board and it happens here. Communicating with spirits is ALWAYS a bad idea.
 |
| "I'm a Medium you guys, I got my certificate online!" |
PREAMBLE OVER:
That aside, as it turns out Ellen was a Witch and her coven managed to summon a demon named Paimon within the body of Annie's daughter Charlie, however, Paimon requires a male host, so Annie's son Peter was the eventual host and the entire movie up until the very end is Joan expelling Peter from his own body (through incantations and driving him to suicide) so that Charlie/Paimon can take possession of him. Did I get that right? Told you I understood the film. Here's my issue: Aside from not finding demons scary in the slightest, I wasn't emotionally invested in Peter or Charlie or anyone to genuinely care what happened to them. Charlie's death was Peter's fault, COMPLETELY: He shouldn't have gone to the party (despite wanting to go), he shouldn't have gotten high, and he shouldn't have left Charlie (someone who's obviously autistic) alone at a party full of strangers who didn't give a crap about her. Case in point when Peter mentions among the pot circle that his sister was there one of the stoners asks if she was hot and Peter had NO reply to this. Just having him say "Dude, she's 13." would've gone a long way to developing his character. But I digress. I'll talk more about Charlie's death when I get into how to improve the film.
 |
| Side Note: Why are all teenager in horror movies weed obsessed morons? |
The film didn't need to make Peter a complete dumb ass, because I had no sympathy for him. That being said, I did enjoy the aftermath of the accident, Peter just going home, staying up all night and having Annie find Charlie in the car. The wail of anguish coming from her was simply amazing and easily the only highlight of the film. Moving right along, I couldn't feel sympathy for Annie, throughout the film there was nothing for me to latch onto with her character to make an emotional connection. When she goes to the support group and lays down her whole life story, it was just a conga line of trauma that was extremely exhausting to hear. She's not your everyday average person dealing with grief she's a person dealing with grief her ENTIRE LIFE and I had a hard time relating to her. So in the scenes where she snaps, I was just sitting there thinking the fact that it's taken her this long is awe-inspiring.
 |
| My wife and I laughed so hard at this, this was both hilarious and awesome all at once...not scary though. |
Steven was a non-entity in the film. Gabriel Bryne is so much better than this but every time we see him he's either sitting looking all purse-lipped or putting on a brave face. He has ONE scene where he cries in the car and that's it.
 |
| That Face You Make When You Have To Use The Bathroom And Hit A Red Light. |
The movie gave him nothing to do and because of that, I couldn't relate to him either. Charlie...I was afraid Charlie was going to be the crux of this entire movie. I was afraid she was going to be that Creepy Child Trope, ya know what I'm talking about, that one kid in the horror movie who somehow knows EVERYTHING but can't explain it because they have some kind of learning disability that keeps them from being completely understood by adults and therefore they give you the most critical piece of information at the very end (looking at you "The Ring", even though I enjoyed you-you're not exempt from this!). Yeah, I was worried this was going to be Charlie's role and once she got decapitated, well in the words of Anakin Skywalker;
 |
| Full breaths of oxygen at 60mph |
I'm bringing all of this up to say that part of enjoying a horror movie for me is being able to connect with the characters emotionally. Seeing a Character we like suffer invokes sympathy from us where we think "They don't deserve what's happening to them.", and so on. We want to see them win, we want to see them escape from whatever situation they're in. When Batman got his back broken in "The Dark Knight Rises" it was shocking because here's a guy we've seen winning all the time and then suddenly we're reminded he's just as fragile as anyone else. We needed to see Batman lose so we could experience the triumph when he came back to fight Bane. In "Hereditary" we see a family that's already miserable go to being more miserable and I didn't connect with anyone. Let's talk about "Split" for second, Casey experienced trauma in her life from being raped by her uncle, now I've never been raped by my uncle (thank God) but seeing Casey back then and seeing how she dealt with it and how she's dealing with it now, I genuinely latched onto her character, she was smart and able and willing to defend herself. I was rooting for her the whole way through.
And here's my problem with "Hereditary", I didn't care enough to be scared. Everyone started the film miserable and ended the film miserable (except for the naked old people who are happy because they accomplished their goal). Here's how I would have improved "Hereditary"; Annie's mother dies, they're still estranged and while Annie didn't get along great with her she still allowed Charlie to know her before she passed, as such Grandma gives Charlie that weird symbol necklace and says it's a family heirloom. Charlie isn't autistic just you're everyday average happy go-luck girl. Ultimately, The Graham family are just your everyday average happy family. We need to see them happy because the film needs to give us something to miss. There were no warm exchanges between the characters and especially between Annie and Peter that really made their declining relationship tragic. But image if Annie was very warm with Peter and they had a good relationship, then the revelation of her never wanting to be his mother and attempting to abort him comes off as much more shocking and harder to watch.
 |
| This scene made me laugh and it shouldn't have but seriously though, the way he slammed his face on the desk. SIDE NOTE: Dude actually broke his nose in this scene so kudos. |
Peter isn't a dumb ass and isn't driving high when Charlie is decapitated, but instead, it's just a random accident where Charlie's seat belt is torn and she's thrown through the windshield. One of the things sticking in my craw is that the fact that Peter was driving high never came up, and of course, there was no mechanism in which it would but I really think the film missed an opportunity there. Anyway, after Charlie's death then you can have Annie slowly declining into madness with the film basically playing out the same way EXCEPT the characters are now sympathetic. Peter feels EXTREME guilt over Charlie's death, Annie blames Peter for Charlie's death (even though it wasn't his fault) and Steven is trying to keep the family together by trying to remain positive. Steven in the film isn't even trying to remain positive or anything, he simply sat there and said "Ok." whenever Annie did stuff. Had he attempted to connect with Peter, maybe over a mutually shared hobby we could see him behave as a father and get some perspective on their relationship? Steven in my version needs to be positive so that when the scene comes where he finally breaks down, we feel it because here's a guy who's trying to stay positive and just can't anymore. In the actual film Steven gets one scene where he cries but again they were already miserable anyway.
 |
| My wife pointed out, this movie started with a funeral. |
So when Annie starts to lose her mind and Peter starts experiencing all of this stuff happening, Steven needs to be the odd man out trying to keep both parties from going off the rails. Likewise, Annie's sleepwalking is never fully explored in the film, the first time she mentions it, is the first time we see it happen on screen. It should have been something in the forefront of the film as dousing your children in paint thinner and attempting to set them ablaze is DEFINITELY something that should be addressed. In my version, her sleepwalking would be benign at first and become increasingly dangerous as the film progressed, with Steven finding her in odd places (the tree house) doing odd things like cutting herself (foreshadowing to when she saws her head off)...because again Steven needs something to do.
 |
| Other than this... |
Also in my version NO, seance'. Joan can meet Annie at grief consoling and Joan can be the one doing all the voodoo from behind the scenes. Annie seeing Joan's welcome mat was a great piece of foreshadowing but I would have left it at that (until Annie finds the photos). Joan would essentially be trying to finish what Ellen was doing before she died. That way Annie's increasing insanity and Peter's increasing distress doesn't fall squarely at their feet. The film once again foreshadows my version better with the class discussion of Heracles, stating that the characters having no choice and therefore no hope is far more tragic and I agree. While this still doesn't scare me I think this punches up the emotional energy of a lot of scenes and gives every character their own dynamic. Likewise, at the end of the film, we just watched a happy family get destroyed and a cult of Witches achieve victory by summoning a demon in the ashes of their misery, I'd say that's pretty bleak. Likewise they shouldn't have given the demon a name and shouldn't have explained he was the 8th King of Hell (were 1 through 7 not good enough?), the film should've ended with the coven referencing the resurrected Charlie/Paimon as simply "Their God" or worse as their "True Messiah" (a twisted version of the resurrected Christ, if you wanted to go full demonic) and the movie didn't need naked old people, that's not scary that's just creepy and makes me wanna pour bleach in my eyes (guess that's the point).
 |
| When you drop the soap in a horror movie... |
Hopefully, from reading this, you understand my issue with the film and why I just wasn't scared. I hope you can see my critiques don't come from a pedestrian view of things but from a place of really wanting to be surprised by a horror film and being frustrated when I'm unable to do so. Likewise, I'd like to know what everyone else found compelling about the film because I'm genuinely curious. Demons and witches have never been scary to me and probably won't be ever because I'm under the impression that if anything supernatural has a physical form it or can be named, it's not scary. Ghosts are different and that's a topic in and if it's self but ultimately demons, witches, etc. don't scare me. and sadly, I can't think of a horror movie that has genuinely scared me in recent memory. "Sinister" while I was entertained, didn't scare me, "The Conjuring" once again dealt with a witch and the other one a demon, didn't scare me and the "Insidious" film...less said the better. So I don't know, maybe I just have a stronger constitution against horror than most people. Let me know what you think and I'll catch you guys later.
No comments:
Post a Comment