Hereditary - 2018 film review

Hereditary was the first film to be written and directed by Ari Aster. He followed up with Midsommar, which I found slow-moving but very striking. The same can be said about his debut. It's over two hours long, and it's not without flaws, but it packs a punch - several punches, in fact. And like Midsommar, it's clearly superior to your average horror film. Aster is an ambitious writer and director, and aiming high brings rewards.

The film begins in the aftermath of the death of Ellen, a matriarch who clearly exerted a profound and questionable influence over her daughter Annie (Toni Collette). Annie is a miniaturist, and her work gives Aster the opportunity for a number of haunting visual effects. She's married to Steve, a part played with great restraint by Gabriel Byrne. Steve is a psychiatrist, but the film doesn't give us much confidence in his professional skills. The couple have two children, 16 year old Peter and the rather weird 13 year old Ellen, who was devoted to her grandmother.

An incident occurs which is so shocking that I'm reluctant to give a spoiler, although this does inhibit my discussion of the film. Suffice to say that Aster's presentation of grief is compelling. Annie is befriended by an older woman called Joan (Ann Dowd, who was equally excellent in a very different role in the remake of Rebecca) and gets involved in the murky world of seances. 

Midsommar is a film that repays more than one viewing and the same is true of Hereditary. I didn't 'get' everything about either film first time around. Maybe that's my fault, a sign of lazy viewing, but I prefer to think that it's a tribute to Aster's skill and the depth of his vision as a storyteller. The endings of both films are, in some respects, over the top, but that's permissible in a horror film, and Aster is interested in something more important than cheap thrills. This is another haunting movie and I'll be interested to watch it again.

 

 

The Sixth Sense - film review

The Sixth Sense is the psychological thriller movie that made the name of M. Night Shyamalan, both as writer and director, when it first appeared in 1999. It earned six Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, and is much admired for its clever plot twist. So why has it taken me so long to get round to watching it? It's a mystery in itself!

The story is set in Philadelphia (a city I liked very much when I visited it some years ago for Bouchercon) and centres around a child psychologist, Malcolm Crowe (played by Bruce Willis) who is shot early on in the film by a young man and former patient called Vincent who feels let down by him. Some months later, Crowe takes on a new case, that of young Cole Sear, whose problems are similar to Vincent's.

Cole's mother, played by Toni Collette, is an attractive but anxious single mother whose devotion to her son is occasionally tested by his strange behaviour. Crowe does his best to help, but meanwhile his marriage seems to be heading for trouble, as his wife (played by the excellent Olivia Williams) is behaving distantly and taking an interest in another man. To say too much more might risk giving away the finale.

One of the interesting features of the film is that Shyamalan plants clues to the twist with a fairness that Christie would have approved. Even though I'm not a great fan of Bruce Willis, he does a competent job in an unusual role, though I think he's better suited to all-out action. It's a well-made movie, although I'm not sure that its quite the all-time classic that some people seem to believe it to be. I'm glad I've taken the opportunity, even if belatedly, to see what all the fuss was about. Overall, I'd rate this as a decent piece of entertainment, no more, no less..