I got really into movies and tv series during the recent pandemic a few years ago, before that it was more of a casual thing and I wonder if the industry will keep up this monstrous pace after 2025 since this year there has been a lot of content that got release because of the 2023 backlog after the Hollywood Strike, my point is that how the F I never saw "Hereditary", after watching this movie I end stunned and disturbed in the best possible way, so for as not being your typical horror movie that relies on jump scares to get an audience reaction, I gave it an 8/10.
From the cover I knew immediately that something is not right with this family, because the opening of the movie has Annie Graham attending her mother's funeral. Toni Collette plays Annie, who lives with her husband Steve and teenage son Peter as well as her 13 year old daughter Charlie and makes miniature art pieces. It all starts out with the death of Annie's mom, which starts a series of events which slowly starts to peal off the family's dark secrets, a history of mental illness.
Rottentomatoes Rating
When Charlie, Annie's young daughter who just seems to have some kind of bond with her deceased grandmother, end in one of the most shocking scenes I've ever seen in horror movies, the story takes a sharp turn after Charlie sticks her head out of the car window during the late night drive with Peter, she gets decapitated by a telephone pole that sets a the stage for what will become a psychological nightmare. Annie’s grief drags her into the black, into a support group, where she meets Joan, who tells Annie it’s possible to speak to the dead, at first I thought it was a little cliche considering her situation.
I think Toni Collette delivers one of the best horror movie performances ever for me or at least I would put it on my top 10 without running any exact numbers, probably I'm too excited and bias. Annie turn into an emotional roller coaster that feels lots of pain, real and raw. She is absolutely mesmerizing in the way she plays the role of a mother trying to overcome her unimaginable grief, while in her own mind, she wonders if she is going crazy. Peter at the same time puts up a great performance where on some scenes he's processing his own trauma and guilt, and Alex Wolff brings that incredibly and adds another level of shocking acting to this. Gabriel Byrne plays Steve, the husband desperately trying to stick everything together as it all crumbles around him, somehow trying to figure out if there’s yet another way of approaching this family, desperate to keep things functioning even as his family does its best to fall apart. Charlie turns into a haunting, unforgettable presence that makes every scene it's in discomfortable with just its own presence and that signature clicking sound.
What I love about Hereditary is that it builds tension through atmosphere, and not through cheap scares, the movie is so good with using silence and sound, that you never get a break from this constant feeling of dread. These long, slow shots make you feel like you’re watching everything happen, inside one of Annie’s miniature houses. The movie also use characters as metaphores or things themself like dolls, like they're being kept in a box, manipulated by forces outside their control, everything about the miniatures at a point felt wrong, its brilliant how this horror movies for example Smile can turn something totally common into creepy, I think same happens here with Annie's miniatures.
The ending of the movie is where everything ties up together as disturbingly as possible. According to what I latter on discover that Annie’s mother was a member of a cult that worshiped a demon king named Paimon who requires a male host. Charlie was never really Charlie, but always possessed her from birth by Paimon, and her death was arranged by the cult to transfer Paimon into Peter's body. The whole movie was so much about this cult’s elaborate plan to find a perfect male host for their demon king, and Annie’s family was just pawns in this bigger sinister game. It's both horrifying and weirdly satisfying all in one final scene in the tree house, where we see Peter/Paimon being crowned with all the cultists naked and all the decapitated bodies of his family members surrounding him.
I had to watch some scenes again to put everything together to be honest, in my opinion there are some key aspects that have to do with the film mess with your mind and still have me wondering about them. The first one that made me think was "Was Charlie ever real?" This is probably the creepiest part of the whole thing as director Ari Aster confirms that Charlie was never Charlie, she was Paimon when she was born. This actually makes sense when you think about it, so much about her weird behavior like that creepy clicking sound that she makes, and why she is always doing such disturbing things like cutting the head off that pigeon. If you look closely enough at Charlie's artwork, you'll see that she drew headless figures bowing to this weird bird headed creature with a crown, basically telling us what was going to happen at the end of the movie, this are cool details that we often don't pay attention too, recently I learn this on HOTD where Helaena usually draws everything on her room walls, its art but still telling exactly how things going to happen, I really enjoy when a movie makes me look up why and how things happen after it ends.
Another thing I kept wondering and probably think this movie deserves a sequel or prequel because why and who came up with this entire plan?. Things get really dark here because yes, everything was planned right from the start the moment the movie starts is already a creepy plan in motion, Annie's mom wasn't a part of some weird cult, she was basically breeding her daughter to make perfect vessels for Paimon. She needed a male of one of her bloodline to host this demon king. That's why she was so interested in Peter and couldn't get to him at first, and so close to Charlie. It was this huge elaborate plan that started before Annie was born, like Annie’s support group speech about her family’s history of mental illness, those were actually clues to how long this cult had been planning this.
This cult was watching the family the whole time, that woman Joan who acts like she’s helping Annie, Annie is just being manipulated to complete the ritual, she's part of the cult. When they try to contact the dead, they were just dark rituals to let Paimon take over Peter. Looking back at all these details, you can see just how trapped this family was from the start. It’s even more disturbing because they never had a chance, no matter what they did, its something that was planned for generations to come, lot of devotion into this Paimon.
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