Hereditary is the horror film that has been described as a ‘ride of pure terror’ and likened to The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining, to which I can say only: in its dreams. Given I’m such a wuss when it comes to anything frightening — the child-catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang still scares the living daylights out of me — I’m rather thankful, but I’m perplexed as to why it received such rave reviews. Ride of pure terror? I’ve had more terrifying rides on the teacups at the fair. I saw it at the paying cinema with my adult son and his girlfriend, who were also bored out of their minds and could only conclude that ‘all other critics are idiots’. This is as I’ve long suspected, but it’s useful to have it confirmed.
Written and directed by Ari Aster, Hereditary stars an overwrought Toni Collette as Annie, whose mother, Ellen, has just died. Annie had a difficult relationship with Ellen and I initially thought the scene was being set for a horror spin on ambivalent motherhood, which could have been interesting, but I was wrong. Unlike, for example, Get Out, which was clever and made a point, this never felt anything other than pointless. Stuff certainly happens after Ellen’s death. Symbols and signs appear. A book on spiritualism is discovered. Ellen’s grave is desecrated. But they occur flatly, as if being ticked off some shopping list.
The film is packed with tropes and clichés: a house in the woods, dead birds, a locked room, a creepy attic. These are knowing but there are others that, one suspects, aren’t knowing at all, and feed into one particular old chestnut: men are calmly sane while women are always hysterical.
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