The Graham family is grieving in the wake of the death of Annie's mother. Annie (the amazing Toni Collette) is a miniaturist/diorama artist and throws herself into intricate, miniature depictions of her own spaces. Her older husband (Gabriel Byrne) tries, consistently and yet ineffectually, to support his family. Their son, stoner high schooler Peter, wasn't particularly close to his grandmother but their very weird, intensely shy, kind of funny-looking daughter Charlie was, and she seems lost now - uttering a strange verbal tic and constructing toys/figurines out of plastic, wire and - ugh - actual animal parts. Annie tries a grief-counseling group and unleashes a terrible monologue about the history of mental illness in her family: her father killed himself by starvation, her brother killed himself after accusing her mother of "putting people in him" and her mother was cold, distant, secretive, manipulative and deeply strange. The Grahams' time at home together is tense and very uncomfortable.
Then - and I don't want to say any more than the bare minimum - in a shocking, SHOCKING event, a truly horrific accident happens and the family is hurled deeper into grief, pain and horror. When unexplainable things start happening at the house, it is unclear whether they're really happening or it's Annie's own schizophrenia manifesting itself. The end of the movie ramps up with violence, haunted house scenarios, witches and devil worship but really, truly, it is the earlier focus on the family's real pain in the face of loss that is the most scary.
Wow. That was awesome. Toni Collette was absolutely incredible and Alex Wolff, who plays son Peter, was top-notch as well. Super-tense and uncomfortable, very effective scares and visuals both arty and gory. At two-plus hours
Hereditary is maybe a little long but it is definitely one of the good ones.
From my notes: "Those ain't no flowers in the attic."
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