Provocative, subtle and effective horror film Hereditary

Director: Ari Aster Starring: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Mallory Bechtel, Zachary Arthur Ari Aster’s debut feature Hereditary brings forth those murky questions. Perhaps, in the end, it’s all the same kettle of demons, but there’s something to Aster’s approach that seems to strike a different chord to its brethren horror sensations of late.

The film made a major splash at its Sundance Film Festival debut, yet the fact Hereditary is being ( rightly) talked of as one of the most singularly terrifying, singularly disturbing horror films in years speaks to its unique sense of mood.

The film’s setup is, admittedly, conventional, as its central family unit is immediately faced with loss: Annie (Toni Collette)’s mother has passed away from cancer, with the effects rattling the domestic harmony between her and her placid husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), and two children - sullen teen Peter ( Alex Wolff ) and mildly sinister Charlie (Milly Shapiro), the latter possessing a horror genre-primed impulse to craft toys out of morbid materials.

Yet, Hereditary isn’t here to play back your own worst nightmare in front of your eyes, but to render a featurelength iteration of the paranormal experience. That deeply specific sensation that not only liberally intermixes dread and terror, but an uneasy sense of uncertainty. Of hesitation.

This is a film that takes sinister delight in playing games with our own perceptions: what’s that in the corner of the room? A coat folded over a chair? Or something we dare not even imagine? And so, for much of its running time, the film’s supernatural elements are surprisingly low stakes.

But all the more effective for it, as a chance meeting between Annie and recentlyconverted spiritualist Joan (Ann Dowd) convenes in a séance that stays unnervingly faithful to the quiet, hovering expectations which bother the mind as one calls out to the darkness: “Are there any spirits present with us?”

However, by no means does Hereditary so willingly sedate itself for its entire run. And when its full terrors are unleashed, the result can almost feel like too much to bear. Aster’s sense of precedence carefully curates some of the most effective tricks of horror’s past greats: the wide-angle shots that shape Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a dash of the paranoia which wracks Rosemary’s Baby, and - to dial things forward in time - the sense of stillness that haunts It Follows. It understands, too, how the careful manipulation of tension can render the singular, largely unassuming image into a shot of pure terror: in the tradition of Mulholland Drive’s infamous diner scene, and its figure in wait around the corner, or The Shining’s interrupted man in a bear costume.

Hereditary does offer less of the clean-cut metaphoric flair that a film like The Babadook chases after, since its ghosts don’t exactly function as walking metaphors for depression, grief, or alienation—or a combination of all three. A complicated depiction of grief, in short. Annie is largely estranged from her mother upon her death, readily admitting at her funeral that she was a “very secretive and private person”. And so, the film’s sense of unease matches Annie’s own.

Hereditary navigates the awful feeling of when guilt and grief intersect: the guilt of feeling like you’ve not grieved enough, or the guilt of feeling like you might be responsible in some way.

Toni Collette’s work as Annie here is gut-wrenching in its own terms, as she’s able to craft a horror that reaches beyond just what goes bump in the night, but that lies at the heart of a woman whose whole family seems to be crumbling before her eyes.

Secrecy, guilt, anguish: Hereditary breeds its own phantoms. Ones which like hang around, to boot. Weeks later, you may step into a dark room, and that chilled feeling will come rushing back: am I truly alone right now? THE INDEPENDENT