Hereditary: Hope for the Horror Genre?

Hereditary has been championed by some as the scariest horror movie of 2018. As an avid fan of horror, I thus decided to check it out. The film starts out with a morbid, but a strangely calming start. As the movie progresses, the whole thing becomes a whole lot darker and and more eerie. Seances, demonic entities, possession, and other typical horror movie elements were involved, although the director uses these elements as less of a jump-scare, and more of an intricate chain of interconnected events that involves mental hallucination and reality. This gives the director the power to confuse the viewers, making it scary without it having any cliche horror elements besides the sinister music. The movie ends abruptly, with a fast-paced "cat and mouse" chase scene involving one of the main characters, Peter, and his possessed mother. The ending leaves us with a reincarnated demon worship, with Peter being the living host.

These last few scenes were the only part of the movie that featured more horror film tropes, as the rest of the film instead focused more on the relationships of the characters and differences between reality and fantasy. Overall, Hereditary was one of the best horror movies I've watched, with its build-up of palpable and bone-chilling tension and frighteningly realistic effects.The movie was the best of its kind and portrayed horror in a way in which supernatural elements did not need to be involved for the majority of the movie to feel supernatural.

 - Tehsin Hsieh (14/09/18)