A fresh voice in the horror world arrived when writer-director Ari Aster delivered the haunting chills with his Hereditary. The film also gave veteran actress Toni Collette an opportunity to deliver her best performance of her career—and yes, that is saying something.
Hereditary is now out on DVD, Blu-Ray and digital download formats and features a story about apples not falling far from their terrifying trees.
Collette is Annie, a mother who appears to be at her wits end as her family is falling apart. Her mother has passed away and that unleashes a tsunami of oddness that slow burns into an epic psychological study of kin and how the thickness of blood may be the most dangerously maddening thing in the world.
Milly Shapiro portrays Collette’s daughter Annie. From the moment the actress appears on the screen, the creepy factor goes through the roof. There is something about her performance that is chilling to the core and one can see how it fuels the fire of madness (or is it reality?) in her mother. It is rare that a young actress can go to the depths that it takes to make Annie pop off the screen in a manner that simultaneously exudes fear, anxiety, curiosity, innocence and demure devilishness.
Then there is Gabriel Byrne as Steve. He seems to be the most stable one of this lot and yet, there is something underneath the surface in his performance that gives us the willies as much as the two female leads.
Overall, Hereditary is an acting clinic. Even the supporting players, relatively nameless souls that come in and out of this family’s landscape, keenly know the tone that masterfully permeates throughout, and each executes their place at this terrifying table with pitch perfect panache.
None would be able to sink their titanic talents into their roles were it not for Aster’s stunning and searing script. How the helmer weaves his web of deeply psychological and mesmerizing character studies within the framework of a family falling apart at the seams is an instant modern horror classic.
Hereditary raises so many rich and fascinating questions. The film makes you question family and how much of our makeup (physically and psychologically) is nurtured, nature or terrifyingly—a combination of those elements and everything in between. Aster’s tome delves deep into the concept of family—something that goes back millennia—and produces some uncanny insight into what it means to be part of a clan and how much of our self-definition can be produced sans those who brought us into the world and aide our assimilation into it.
For more on the film itself, don’t miss our “A” theatrical Hereditary review.
There is not a bevy of bonus features, but then again, we wouldn’t want that from a release like Hereditary. The film itself raises questions that we don’t need answers to… that being said, Cursed: The True Nature of Hereditary is extraordinary. Witnessing Aster and his troupe discuss the themes of family trauma enhances the overall tone of the emotional hurricane one has just witnessed. Sure, they could have gone into the supernatural aspects that the story suggests. Smartly, that is not an arena they seek to shine a spotlight on—after all, this is a family struggle story and that is what makes it so terrifying.
One of the things that Annie does is create miniatures and seeing some of her creations further haunts us after witnessing the movie itself. Don’t miss the Evil in Miniature Photo Gallery.
Film Grade: A
Bonus Features: B