the familial trauma chiller HEREDITARY

I've seen my head from both sides now

omg that made me actually lol

This film really did a number on me - I was v hungover & had to chase it away with a couple of beers before/during the film but still. I went into it cold, knowing only that it was a hyped horror film, so was unprepared for the emotional rawness of it (& that rawness doesn’t go away even when the film gets gnarly)

Collette, dowd & the kid who plays Charlie should all get oscars

ppl i 'follow', and who like horror, were p underwhelmed mostly

The actor who played peter, his performance in the accident & aftermath scene, I was having palpitations

Some of his acting later, the crying in particular, seemed to skirt the limits of acceptability in a way that felt deliberate and interesting

Every minor character, even the lol teens, was so thoughtfully written and played. Idk a lot of the recent horror revival films are high-concept one-gag twilight zoney things, which is fine, but this feels so rich & thematically interesting and just, really well done. Some gorgeous compositions in this thing

i enjoyed this a lot and thought toni collette and the teenage boy were both fantastic in it
my one complaint is that it felt a little scattershot, with a lot of different imagery and ideas and references to past events being thrown out that didn't necessarily cohere or resolve

See what you’ve just described is basically my jam - an inflection is all the “connective tissue” I need - but I know what you mean: even with the emotional content, stuff like the miscarriage confession, which is HUGE, so much other stuff happens that I completely forgot about it until a few moment ago

Annie's monologue at the support group is so squirm-inducing and uncomfortable.

Omg yes, that and the eulogy doing so much heavy lifting for this whole fucked up history

This is a great film for horrified sympathy reaction shots, a good proportion of which come from joanie which complicates things lol

It is pretty amazing how quickly they blow by the whole "my brother committed suicide at 16 because my mom was possessing him with evil spirits" thing which of course was relevant

The pacing is really rushed sometimes for a 2hr movie. Maybe it should have been split into two 1.5 hr parts?

that's funny to me because I found the first 60-70 mins almost hilariously slow

Haha I just remembered “what language is even this?”

Yeah there's a lot of languid scenes and then there's "we gotta explain the paimon angle in a highlighted text in about 5 seconds"

I feel like there's also a missing third act where they realize their demon king is only interested in smoking pot and eating candy bars and clucking.

The wildly varying pace was a plus for me, v disorienting (and seemingly deliberately so)

Yeah same

I like that you think the whole thing will be a slow burn and then they just open the trapdoor

I was listening to the film comment podcast interview with the director and apparently the “slow” section was meant to be even longer/slower but they ended up cutting several slow tense domestic scenes for pacing’s sake

lol yeah 126 minutes was definitely pushing it already

Do we have any thoughts on the use of "Both Sides Now" (beyond the fact that my audience laughed)

i have been waiting for anyone to have more thoughts than i do!

my feelings are (in no order) this song -- and this version in particular --is
1) a powerful emotional catalyst -- and also an opportunity for stressed moviegoers to really let their fear-tears rip after that harrowing story (this is what happened to me, I started crying and it was totally beyond my control, regained my composure in the bathroom and felt like a choad)
2) that song is about the loss of innocence (right?) and gaining of understanding so maybe it was a comment on that?
3) twee musical comic relief?

i recognized it within about 3 seconds and was like wait -- what? -- and that's when i felt the waterfall start

i thought it was a brilliant choice but have no idea what it "means" to the filmmakers

I think those are all good takes. I don't have any further thoughts lol - other than I am considering a 2nd viewing

i looked it up and it was also used in Love Actually (which I found revolting and I don't think is related to this usage of the song)

maybe they're saying: secular family dysfunction, demonic cult, same thing? I haven't seen love actually, so maybe they had the same message.

love actually is about demonic cults and intense family trauma so i guess that makes sense

heh

I really liked it. A bit shaggy as many have noted, but extremely effective as a dread delivery device. It was refreshing to have the feeling (for most of the running time anyway) of not knowing where the movie was going.

It reminded me a bit of the (awesome) Korean horror flick The Wailing in its almost comical level of intensity and willingness to play with expectations.

Really liked a lot of this. As a sleepwalker I've not seen a more trueful portrayal of the confusion involved.

Your mom worshiped the devil and possessed you too??

>It reminded me a bit of the (awesome) Korean horror flick The Wailing in its almost comical level of intensity and willingness to play with expectations.

Oh man, I *loved* The Wailing. There were a couple of scenes late on which stayed with me a for a long time - the night time conversation with The Mysterious Woman and her promise, and the bit where the priest goes into the cave. I'll never look at a Minolta High-Matic the same way.

Did Joan put something in Annie's tea when she first went to visit her?

I think that's meant to be unclear.

I finally got to see this movie

From Charlie's death to the final sequence, every scene was a disappointment

So much hand-holding through easy-to-grasp myth-building

No way to trace the logic behind Annie's breakdown-- why did she decide to burn the book? no reason

Music ruled tho, I loved the placid approach to the final scene

The Charlie seance was one of the worst-acted/written/directed scene I've ever seen and reminded me why I typically avoid films starring Gabriel Byrne

lmao, I liked Byrne's cluelessness/inability to engage with the situation, like he couldn't access the movie he was in (purposely, I think)

That is Gabriel Byrne in every movie he's cast in

It's a mystery to me how that man gets any work

Ha, I think he's pretty frequently fine (particularly in In Treatment and Miller's Crossing) but I completely get just having a mental block to enjoying some actors. (for me this is Juliette Lewis)

Maybe I missed it, but I couldn't work out what Byrne's job/employment actually was in this film.

she decided to burn the book because it was full of creepy pictures of her son being killed?

There was just a vast gulf between "clearly very obvious plot elements being overexplained" and "subtle things being not explained at all (writing on the wall, significance of the model homes)", that certain moments where Annie was begging for people to believe that She Alone Knew What Would Fix Things-- let's have a seance! let's burn this book and I'll die and all will be well-- and Annie's insistence upon those acts being accomplished-- "I alone can fix this!"-- made zero sense to me.

I think for the most part the weird gaps, indulgences, and leaps you're mentioning were experienced by most people (at least itt) as features and not bugs. (See also the leisurely-turned-hectic pacing). Without another feature to contrast it with it's tough to know how deliberate the cumulative effect of these choices were, but it seems to have struck a nerve. (Though clearly not with everyone! See also the CinemaScore.)

The near-constant use of crane shots was nice

xp i have the same vibe, in that i really enjoyed this but could also totally see why others would hate it for many of the same reasons

Maybe I missed it, but I couldn't work out what Byrne's job/employment actually was in this film.

Office Man

i got the impression he was a professor or academic of some kind but now i can't remember why

was that gabriel byrne naked in the doorway at the end?

no, it was the creepy dude who was smiling at charlie during grandma's funeral at the beginning of the movie

Ah dude looked a lot like him at that point. Would of made for a disappointing plot twist

Would have*

there's a really good blink-and-you'll-miss-it detail in the scene where Peter has his freak-out/possession in the class. just after the camera pans out to show all of his classmates reeling in shock, one of them at the edge of the frame is shown standing nonchalantly filming the whole thing on his phone.

This was wonderfully entertaining, funny, rewarding

Yeah I thought it was great in a Witch plus Rosemary’s Baby plus Ordinary People. Really affecting score too and amazing sound design. I do agree with one review I read that they kind of waste Colette in the ending but she’s so good throughout seems a minor complaint.

otherwise beyond visuals/score effectiveness i don't see much reason to think of both movies at the same time

there isn't -- i just put it out there because i really super enjoyed both of the movies, both of the scores, and two big symbiotic audiovisual experiences like that don't usually happen in one year, at least not for me. i really liked both of them. hereditary will stay with me more for the movie, mandy more for the score. we don't have to keep talking about mandy itt.

well this was traumatizing

Toni collette deserves an oscar nomination btw

She'll get one, I think.

also lol what universe are you guys living in where horror movies win Oscars

Last year?

I thought Shape of Water was a rom com

I guess they did give one to Jordan Peele so ya got me there

Collette will def be nominated

She was nominated for Sixth Sense, too, iirc her only previous Oscar nomination. I guess she should do horror more often?

Natalie Portman won Best Actress for Black Swan

damn toni went sicko mode

tee hee

shoulda really got an oscar nod here

yeah she's phenomenal in this

http://wtfbabe.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/hereditary-55-gif-blue-light-special-wtf-watch-the-film-saint-pauly1.gif

yea wtf
Early summer release + horror = long way to go for a nom
Still tho

Wow, I managed to go this whole time without getting any spoilers about this movie (nothing beyond someone making a joke sometime back about a decapitation), so went in more or less blind. And boy, did I not expect it to go full batshit! From Rosemary's Baby to The Witch, I love movies where there is no twist and what you think is happening is what's happening. This one, though, for most of it I watched it as a kind of cross between The Sixth Sense and Manchester by the Sea, but then towards the end, when it goes nuts ... hats off, crazy filmmakers.

Toni Collette was great in this. Everyone the boy, maybe, who seemed a little too ... old?

damn Manchester by the Sea comparison is OTM

Well, this was a bit of fun.

Just to continue the discussion here instead of the other thread, since I haven't seen the new movie yet, I do agree that Rosemary's Baby is more successful. Which in and of itself is kind of duh, because Rosemary's Baby is a masterpiece ratified by decades of reverence (and reference). But I do agree that Hereditary gets a little undisciplined toward the end. Or perhaps too disciplined? It's such a bigger, more open world than RB, and (or so) it's established pretty early on that something supernatural is up. What it kind of rushes into at the end is the resolution that the family has been set up into a situation, yeah, more obscure than, oh, it's Satanists, a concept/threat everyone kind of gets. But Hereditary introduces all these weird rules and stuff that have to be explained into the movie's conclusion, but by then we've moved so far beyond "this is all in her head" that it gets kind of ... impatient and off, especially for a movie whose running time is pretty much half people turning around slowly and staring in terror at something off screen. Still effective, though!

I just saw this with no knowledge except that it was vaguely horror. Wow, the sucker punch of the decapitation just comes out of no where to such an extent that it kind of took the next third of the movie to recover. Possibly because of this, the middle annoyed me as Collette sort of spastically lurches from scene to scene in repressed horror trying to resolve the situation in dumb ways (sceance, etc.), which I guess I get in light of her grasping to deal with a terrible situation. Really liked the last twenty minutes when things just went full on crazy. So many creepy touches like Collette sawing her own head off to her body floating away to the corpses being posed in worship to the end song.

The grave tension of Collette and Byrne with the book resolving with Byrne suddenly bursting into flames took me by surprise and I started laughing out loud!

Finally watched this, on Amazon Prime, and regardless of a lot of other thoughts and feelings I just can't think of another recent movie that kept me so constantly off-kilter. The use of colors, the instant day-to-night transitions, the instant location changes, it just all combined to keep me feeling uncomfortable and wrong-footed. Were the establishing exteriors actually tilt-shifted miniatures, or were they just shot that way to strengthen the metaphor regarding the miniatures that Annie makes?

I kinda want to watch it again, to see if Joan is visible at the funeral at the beginning.

I did love how in all of the early scenes, up through the dinner scene, the only way Toni Collette and the son could talk to each other was by asking each other questions, without ever actually answering or making a statement.

I wish genre movies didn't get overlooked, she really did deserve an Oscar nod.

Again, genre movies don't get as overlooked as one might assume. Get Out won best screenplay the previous year, and was nominated for a ton of other things. And Toni Collette's single previous Oscar nomination was for The Sixth Sense. So it happens. But as much as the Oscars still denote some kind of symbolic victory, the important thing is that literally everybody recognizes Toni Collette's performance in this movie to be incredible.

Hadn't seen this before. 30 minutes in. Paused until my anxiety attack settles down.

not being able to do this live is what made seeing this in a packed theater such a memorable experience

that was where my wife peaced out entirely iirc xp

Yea it's why as much as i loved it, a rewatch is not forthcoming

this movie was scary as fuck, and I have seen my fair share of horror flicks

I would rewatch just to try and figure some shit out, plus like Midsomar there are some great shots

creepiest parts:

smiling Peter in the glass reflection
mom banging her head against the attic door
first manifestations of the naked people
*cluck*

the high speed decapitation and headless daughter sitting in car in driveway gave me nausea

every now and again, when half asleep going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, i get an image of the naked guy smiling in the corner and i have to banish it as quickly as possible as a dangerous brain worm

yup that was like Shining bear-suit level creepy

I watched this last night and didn't get much from it. I dampened my feelings about Collette's suffering because it was basically too gruelling (the scene in the bedroom after she's discovered the daughter is precisely the scene that most movies leave out and for good reason - it was too much), which mostly meant I found the histrionics overpowering and they took me out of the film. The thunk as she sawed her own head off made me mutter a 'thank christ for that'.

I enjoyed the pacing of the first half, but the rapid speed of the final third made me think of a whole bunch of post-Conjuring films that mistake elevation for tension and maybe even psychedelia (Mandy absolutely doesn't fit this pattern).

What's stayed with me is the commentary on parenthood (much the same as its twin in gruelling misery, The Babadook) and the terror of failure, of passing one's neuroses and suffering on to your own kids. And reading this thread has definitely made me wish I'd seen it at the theatre. Awesome score, obvs.

You gotta wonder

https://www.instagram.com/p/ClRkIjSvgrx/

hmm. over/under $200?

Under!

https://shop.a24films.com/products/hereditary-gingerbread-house