Hereditary-Is Death and Grief Rational?

So, I akin the new film, Hereditary to last year’s Mother!, with audiences loving or hating it with not many in between, if at all.  One thing I heard is it takes multiple viewings to take it all in.

The thing with Hereditary is, while it sticks to some horror tropes, unlike the fast-paced horror of today, it’s a slow burn, almost crawling in some places, but it’s definitely a burn that builds to its end, which, like Mother!, was something to behold if you get through all the disturbing imagery to get to said finale.

Hereditary deals with grief and asks the question whether we truly know the people we think we’re closest to in death as the film opens on the funeral of Annie Graham’s, played ever increasingly hauntingly by Toni Collette, mother.  During the ceremony, Annie’s eulogy of her mom’s candidly strange while other goings-on seem off kilter.

After her daughter’s, who’s played chillingly by Milly Shapiro, accidentally killed while in the care of her brother, who’s played by Alex Wolff, Annie learns more about her mom than she EVER knew, causing an avalanche of death and freakiness that includes possession? And definitely a twisted ending.

Grief’s an interesting feeling, no two people go through it the same.  In this incident, there’s survivor’s guilt that comes with the grief, especially in the case of Peter, the brother with manifestations that he may or may not be seeing/going through.  At the same note, Annie seems to have slipped…or, has she.

We’ve only seen the movie once and we had questions after into this morning, so the double viewing thing must have some merit to it.

You guys’ll have to tell us what you think.

Be good to each other.

-J-