Film Review: Hereditary has shock, not necessarily chills

The Hereditary trailer looked promising. A dark tale of family secrets, unusual professions and a knowing, quiet child. Unfortunately, despite all the drama that ensues in the film, the trailer seems to promise something different, if not more, than the movie actually offers.

The film starts with a mother's funeral, where the daughter has not one nice thing to say about her and doesn't even know many of the people attending it. The 13 year old granddaughter is the only one who seems to be visibly affected by the passing. The family seems to be inching back to normal life when their lives suddenly spin out of control, with shocking occurrences eventually leading up to an ending that can only be described as bizarre.

Delivering on the shock value can be an essential part of keeping the audiences engaged. But shock itself can be shown in multiple ways. Hereditary relies on the most visually brutal of these ways, namely, decapitated heads, last seen to great effect, most popularly in the very medieval series Game of Thrones. Except, that this is the 21^st century. The trailer suggested that this was a relatively more sophisticated horror film, than one that will get into such raw territory. The use of music, especially in the first half of the films, to deliver chills where there is little to fear and the film's falling into adolescent explorations of the supernatural like seances with the dead using glasses, also do disservice, despite some good acting. Notably, Milly Shapiro, who plays the 13 year old girl, is fabulous as a haunted, hard to read teenager. Unfortunately, her part is quite small.

But I seem to belong to a small section of people that is underwhelmed by Hereditary. Not only has the film been a huge box office success already, it has earned rave reviews. Which evidently indicates that there is something about the film that speaks to the audience and critics alike. For instance, there is the reference to mental illness and how deeply it impacts a family. The impact is amplified as other family members are consequently affected by it as much as it is 'hereditary' across generations. The offering up of heads can be seen as a literal interpretation of 'losing the head' to a force too dark and too overwhelming to fight. Where the story stops being a straightforward narrative, however bizarre, and starts being a metaphor, however, is a question.

People who enjoy horror films are said to sub-consciously identify with the victims. These might offer the viewers a sense of redemption, in case the victims finally overpower the aggressors or at the very least provide them with a sense of solidarity for what could otherwise feel like a lonely experience. Of course, the explanation for a film like Hereditary doing well could be far simpler – its a decently made summer release. But it seems worth pondering whether in a time of social media, smart phones, increasingly heavy-handed statecraft and rising inequalities, people around the world are feeling watched and heard surreptitiously, manipulated and powerless to fulfill their desired destinies. The fact that Hereditary in fact shows people being used as puppets without a will of their own, is probably not a coincidence. As is the fact that we are more likely to cling to superstition during uncertain and confusing times.

I am not sure if the gender imbalance was a coincidence or a deliberate reference to fringe, old religious orders that put the male at the helm with women being quite literally, the sacrificial lambs, to the extent that nothing comes in the way of the male embodiment of leadership. In this day and age, a more gender positive or at least gender neutral conclusion would have been far more palatable. But perhaps that was meant to be the biggest shocker of them all.