Hereditary 2018

Hereditary open with an eerie score to set the mode right. The camera moves into a dollhouse, and suddenly that miniature room becomes real, as if the characters are just pieces being moved by someone else. An hour in, wala pa rin akong madeduce. Ari Aster doesn’t rush. It’s a slow burn. Silence. The camera lingers just a few seconds longer than it should, making you sit inside the discomfort. Toni Collette owns this movie. Her performance feels like a raw nerve: shaking, gasping, barely holding on. Her outburst at the dinner table is one of the most powerful scenes I’ve seen. A mother who’s not just angry, but shattered. You can feel that she’s been holding those words in for so long, and finally she had the chance to say them. All the while, all you can hear is the clock ticking. The ticking clock in the background feels like a countdown to something inevitable. And then there’s Charlie. Creepy without trying. When the tragedy hits, the silence after: no music, no scream. Just shock. The way the camera stays on Peter’s face, not the body. The chalkboard and notebook writing isn’t creepy to me. It feels too gimmicky. The visuals aren’t frightening, it’s really the sound that’s effective, lalo na yung hindi mo na nakikita pero naririnig mo pa rin yung inislice yung leeg. This film didn’t really connect with me, which is a blessing, because that only means I grew up in a healthy family with no inheritance of pain and suffering.