Hard-hitting horror story
Hereditary takes an inordinately long time in making unsettling points about the satanically accursed, but when it does and malevolent forces are unleashed, the viewer will cringe. Do what I always do – murmur a little prayer and avert your eyes. Writer-director Ari Aster’s debut film culminates on the same note as Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby while addressing the bereavement of a family wracked by the loss of a pre-teen in an accident. Just as in Ordinary People, the mother Annie Graham (Toni Collette) blames the surviving son Peter (Alex Wolff) while ignoring her own role in the tragedy which felled young daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro).
Charlie was a strange girl, given to decapitating birds and sleeping in a freezing tree house located opposite in the grounds of their home. And what an impressive, albeit gloomy house it is, beautifully shot by cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski as aptly eerie music and sounds seep into our ears.
Charlie was also the apple of her just deceased grandmother’s eye whose funeral opens the film. Granny was a strange character we learn from her choice of reading material: books on the occult. Then Grandmother’s grave is desecrated, a fact that Steve Graham (Gabriel Byrne) Graham, hides from wife Annie who finds solace in the friendship of a woman called Joan (Ann Dowd) from her grief counselling group. Both Peter and Annie wonder if they are hallucinating, but when Joan suggest a seance (a ritual to communicate with the dead) Annie is sceptical. Doubt turns quickly enough to belief and it isn’t long before Annie attempts the same in her home with disastrous results. Do not despair, it’s only a film rendered watchable by a talented director and cast.
Dowd’s persona is terrific, but Collette puts in an Oscar-worthy performance as the distraught wife/mother who turns out to be as terrifying as evil spirits. The climactic scene makes a case for demonic possession, despair and destiny. But the Divine Higher Power, also gives us, poor mortals, hope, faith and choice. Choose wisely then, gentle viewer.