The lives of this poor family turn upside down after the death of their matriarch. They exposed to a series of dark events which they see for first time. And all of this without they know anything about why or who do it.
It has the nerve to suggest that the social unit is, by definition, self-menacing, and that the home is no longer a sanctuary but a crumbling fortress, under siege from within.
But the neatest trick that Hereditary manages is the feeling, especially in that beginning and with its ending, that there's some strange force beyond us, perhaps even beyond this film, just waiting and beholding us...
I was so scared, I was walking down the sidewalk seeing things. So many images in my mind because of this movie...it horrified me, which is what it's supposed to do.
Ari Aster immediately proves himself a deft hand at disorientating his audience, conjuring a quite remarkable piece of unsettling, genuinely nightmarish cinema.
