Hereditary

[elixir01]

Saw this at Sundance London a couple of weeks ago (before I read much of the hype) and for me it's worth a 5 star rating every day of the week.

An amazing directional debut by Ari Aster. Mind blowing performance from Toni Collette (if her performance doesn't get every award going, I will be gobsmacked).

My best advice is to avoid reading too much about it and go and see it the second you get a chance!

[RandomHajile]

saw this at midnight last night, great but they really did overuse that 150bpm subwoofer/bass trick in the sound mix to make you feel uncomfortable/that your heart is beating fast

quite slow then nearly too fast near the end

[drizzy5oh]

Had been looking forward to this for months after hearing the hype at Sundance. Usually we get one horror film per year that gets a ton of hype and is labelled "the scariest film in decades" or "this generation's 'The Exorcist'", but never really lives up to the praise.

For me, Hereditary was mostly the same. First two acts are more of a drama with horror elements, and it felt a little slow-paced for my liking. However, the final 30 minutes or so were what I came for and it's worth the build up.

What I liked about Hereditary was that it didn't recycle the same old horror tropes and cliches. There are very few jump scares (only one I can remember), and the film does not shy away from showing you what other films would not and does not fear taking things in a new direction. What it does, it does very well.

Overall, it's better than your average genre film and others could take note as to how to effectively build dread and scares without the need to make someone jump, but for me it just didn't live up to the hype.

What it did, it did well, but there wasn't enough of it.

7/10

[sarahlrich]

OMG what did I just watch!!!
Very slow to begin with and then the weirdest (non describable) ending.
Has the writer gone mad?
Glad I saw it but weird. I used website NME to explain the film.

[fraz]

For me, totally overhyped. Very average horror film and a bit over long with the tortoise pacing of the first three quarters. If it wasnt for the hype, my expectations wouldnt have been as high but since they were, it felt really dissapointing. So many questions about the plot too, where to start... 6/10

[raj101]

At uni in halls we used to have a girl with a funny face who lived on the floor above. It was so rare that someone would have a "scary" face that she for the rest of the year became commonly known as "the girl with the funny face". Though obviously not to her face ("ohhhh you're the one with the funny face hiiiii so nice to meet you"). What a horrible lot teens are.

Odds are that in a whole block of flats, you are only going to get 1 or 2 people with a funny face, but this film has a whole family with funny, creepy faces. C'mon, what are the odds?

Never as clever or as stylistic or as wellacted as it wants to be, and a bit donnie darko at the end but nevertheless a gripping watch. You'll feel let down if you dont do Darko darko endings.

Moral is - dont have a family with the girl with the funny face.

3.5 stars.