Hacker Cinema
Hereditary
2018 · Film · 128 min
Directed by Ari Aster
When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about her ancestry.
6 positive2 negative1 mixed3 neutralfrom 12 commenters
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12 comments on Hacker News
To present an opposite viewpoint, I try to only engage with media I suspect future me will be able to revisit and pull enjoyment out of at least once. I rarely actually do so, but I've found it to be a remarkably effective quality filter.
It's also a genre independent quality metric. That's not to be underplayed. Some examples of films that successfully passed it for me: Casablanca; Portrait of a Lady on Fire; Hereditary; Under the Skin; My Neighbor Totoro; The Fifth Element. I'm pretty sure most people would agree at least half of these movies are good.
It turns out most of the things I consider worth revisiting at least once are also things other people would consider that way. So for me a Rewatchability rating is a positive signal.
I don’t usually rewatch movies on my own, so this is mostly a list of movies I thought were special enough to show other people.
Eighth grade
Mother!
The Thing
Rosemary’s Baby
Hereditary
Dead Ringers
Happiness
Synecdoche, New York
The Triplets of Bellville
Very interesting, I was with you in the first half of your comment. But Hereditary is one of my favorite movies. And Men In Black is one of my least favorite, for these reasons. MIB is a disgusting film because it is utterly dehumanizing of the other. Aliens, although fully sentient and obviously "human", are fair game for cruelty, casual dismemberment, and mirthful laughter when their bodies are violently splattered onto other characters. Nobody really bats an eye because they're not Homo sapiens; it's literally the color of their guts which makes it okay to explode them.
That's only one example of the kind of depravity that turns me off of a lot of media, including some very fun Star Wars video games. The parallels with racist thinking are obvious to me; if any being can ask you to respect its bodily autonomy, does it really matter whether or not the creature is familiar? I'll probably get (as I always do) some angered responses that I'm taking things too far. I wonder what those people felt when they watched District 9, but perhaps that movie was too obvious about its protagonist for all viewers to generalize their feelings.
(So why am I okay with Hereditary? It's a literal demon. It's not framed as children's entertainment, it's horror; the filmmakers are very clearly not endorsing the violence depicted.)
I think Hereditary would be a great movie if the ending were completely different. I was never sure exactly what was real and I really enjoyed that. Then that ending pops up like it was spliced from something else. I'm not sure if "jumping the shark" or "showed the monster" fits better.
for the purposes of satisfying the conditions this article is trying to adhere to it doesn't matter that it's the demon in the body now instead of the man, it matters that the male body was chosen over others.
however, if we do consider the demon, the movie has this to say about it:
1. A sentence underlined in pencil reads: "Paimon is Male, thus covetous of a male human body."
2. ... We’ve corrected your first body and give you now this healthy male host. ...
maybe the author is trying to say something about the demons masculine preference (it is covetous of, not dependent on - it was in Charlie first) & how that relates to theirs and others experiences in academia when it comes to preferential treatment; and that just male-ness seems to be important absent of any other qualifiers? after all the women in the movie more or less do all the work to appease Paimon - wouldn't the greatest reward as a devotee be to act as his host? maybe i'm crazy but it's been interesting to think about.
[ quotes from script: https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/hereditary-2018.pdf ]
I chuckled out loud at that interpretation of Hereditary. It's a good point that the matriarch was horrifyingly evil but come on... that guy was by far the most boring character in that story. Also it's hilarious to think of anybody as coming out "on top" in that situation. And let's be open to the possibility that it feeling like a trope might be an indicator of the situation being truly widespread.
Most disturbing movie I've ever seen, by the way. Gave me nightmares for a solid week or two. For about 2 years after I would randomly flash onto a couple vivid scenes and it noticeably affect the rest of my day.
Looking at etsy or the long list of artists on Spotify putting out music without hitting the mainstream radio, I'm not convinced the world has converged everywhere. I have far more variety that appeals to me available to me than ever before - and so does a person with opposite tastes.
Expensive to build or change things have - houses or cars - but art or more commodity products have fractured.
The people/media one is the author's biggest blind spot here: there is still a dominant mainstream that people are chasing, but it's audience is smaller than before. I think this is why they chase the same thing more aggressively. So your "bestsellers" look alike, but more people are reading random shit that would never crack that list in the past either. Selling to a niche is precisely the opposite of what gets you in the bestseller list, but the niches I like have SO MUCH STUFF available now. The non-mainstream has fractured, making the remaining mainstream look more similar to chase a narrower segment. The most watched TV shows now have a far lower percentage of the country watching, and also have more variety in what the cast as a whole looks like, whether that's hairstyle or tattoos or piercings or whatnot.
EDIT: here's an experiment to try to demonstrate. Tell me how many of those lookalike movie and book poster/cover images you've watched. And how many you'd watch more of.
Movies: I've seen 0 of those (I'm not a horror fan anyway, but I've seen a couple in the last five years, Hereditary and The Invisible Man, and they didn't look like those posters).
Self-help books: I've read 0.
I haven't been reading any Danielle Steele, John Grisham, Kathryn Stockett, or Stieg Larsson in the last 15 years either... but Grisham was much more common in my circle, and I read some, in the 90s. I had less fewer options! I read over 30 books last year, and none of them popped up in this article...
They wouldn't be making over a dozen films a year if they weren't making money. Hereditary was their top grossing at like $80 million and was a $10 million film. Lady bird did $79 million on a $10 million budget as well. Moonlight did $65 million on a $4 million budget.
Oh no, I was afraid someone would take me up on that! Hahaha.
No particular order. Since 2010ish. Not an exhaustive list of all good horror in that time frame.
- You're Next. It's a trad home-invasion/slasher kinda thing but... then changes genre. I'll leave it at that.
- Cabin in the Woods. Needs no introduction? Solid humor-horror.
- Evil Dead. The soft reboot. Pretty good for the kind of thing it is, which is an Evil Dead-type movie, of course.
- The Babadook. Great horror for people who like to be scared but don't want gore. Extremely efficient use of a tiny cast and very few locations.
- It Follows. A core concept that's creepy as hell, and some damn fine imagery that will stick with you. Lots of moody, slow-paced (but good!) scenes but... it does follow. Unsubtly very much about the harmful aspects of sex and sexual behavior.
- The Witch (or, The VVitch, as it's styled). If you like frontier-type stuff, with period-accurate dialog, plus horror, this will very likely be up your alley. Nb that here "frontier" means "New England, probably just a few miles in from the coast", not, like, the "Old West".
- Bone Tomahawk. Action-horror that is set in the Old West. Not exactly a piece of fine film-making but it pretty much does exactly what it sets out to do, and does it well, which makes it a success in my book.
- The Void. Carpenteresque creature work and Lovecraftian baddies. Excellent example of a throwback horror movie that aims to feel like it was made in another decade.
- The Girl with all the Gifts. Some people liked this a lot more than I did, so I'm including it. I thought it was just OK. Basically a zombie movie, kinda.
- Krampus. I'm not usually into Christmas-horror, which tends to be sub-b-grade garbage and otherwise just isn't to my taste, but watched this because I kept seeing it recommended, and... wow, it's actually good. Careful that you get the right film, there are a bunch with similar titles and I'd guess most of them are terrible. This is the 2015 one directed by Dougherty.
- Get Out. I'd call it just OK (I don't... think I was supposed to find as much if it laugh-out-loud funny in the final act, as I did?) but accept that I'm probably wrong about that, given the overwhelmingly-positive reaction.
- Train to Busan. Maybe my favorite zombie-hoards type of movie I've seen.
- Sorry to Bother You. If you like genre-bending and lots of absurdism in your horror, this one's for you.
- Happy Death Day. Slasher x Ground Hog Day, with that concept explored for just about all it's worth. Relatively light-hearted (it'd almost have to be) but not without tension. Sequel's less good—not awful, but a big step down. Same director made a similar film, "Freaky", that's another mash-up concept, and is quite good.
- It Comes at Night. Uh... if you really like movies that make you kinda wish you'd never watched them, not because of, say, realistic gore, but because they sorta make your soul hurt, this is a very good movie of that kind. But maybe don't, though?
- One Cut of the Dead. Brilliant concept, fun throughout. Not in any sense a traditional zombie movie, and I would 100% recommend it to people who usually don't like zombie movies. Don't spoil it, go in as cold as possible. It's one that is much better if you know almost nothing about it before you start.
- Game Night. Horror-adjacent, at least. Not amazing but another one that I watched after being repeatedly assured by many people that it was much better than it looked like it would be (it looked pretty bad), and it was.
- Hereditary. I hated this one but it's another where my opinion is way, way in the minority. Lots of people love it.
- Colour out of Space. If you can tolerate, or actually enjoy, Nic Cage, and like Lovecraftian horror, this is worth a watch. Good FX work.
- The Last Matinee. By-the-numbers slasher set in a Uruguayan movie theater, in the 90s. Great kills, the right kind of gross, good set-up/pay-off, good at making you care enough about almost everyone that you're sad when they get got. Requires tolerance for subtitles.
- Caveat. Tight little small-cast film (I think it was a during-the-pandemic production, maybe?). Very stupid-sounding premise that ends up making enough sense in the film itself, and a lot more by the time it's over.
- Vicious Fun. I probably like this one more than it deserves, but I do like it. Horror-comedy, heavy on very winking-at-the-camera references to other horror films and the genre itself. It gets a little bit of the bad kind of indie-feeling in some of the shot choices and acting, but the way it keeps delivering even when you think it's winding down or running out of tricks is outstanding. Did not go the direction I thought it would, judging just from a short description of the plot.
- My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To. Probably the art-housest film on this list, so keep that in mind before deciding to watch it—you're not in for a standard horror experience, though there is tons of tension and definitely some murderin'. Very good, though. Strongly recommend avoiding spoilers as discovering what the movie's about is a big part of the experience.
- The Haunting of Hill House. OK, so it's a self-contained season 1 of an anthology series, not a movie, but it's (like The Babadook) a really good watch for people who like horror but not a bunch of gore or a sky-high body count. Creators seem to both know what themes are and how to use them for horror, which wouldn't be impressive in an ideal world, but is in this one.
The last good American indie film I've watched was Hereditary (2018) [1] and before that 'Blue Ruin' (2013) [2].
They weren't exceptional but when you're awash in 'swords & sandals', 'comic book' crap and Adam Sandler formula-thons, even middling fare seem great.
On the TV front, True Detective Season 2 [3] is sorely underrated. Though fictional, it gives you a glimpse into the many possible dimensions of California graft and corruption that are all too close to real life developments surrounding the recent California High-Speed Rail mismanagement junket [4].
I agree with the sentiment expressed in this thread that well-financed, movies for adults with good casting and talented filmmakers have become very scarce.
[1] Hereditary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditary_(film)
[2] Blue Ruin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ruin
[3] True Detective (season 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Detective_(season_2)
[4] California High-Speed Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
100% agreed re: Spotify, but Netflix's algorithm seems to think that if I liked Annihilation and Arrival then I'll like any young adult or action movie with scifi aesthetic.
Similarly, if I liked The Witch and Hereditary then top recommendations for me must be $5m budget cash grab teen slashers and haunted webcam gimmicks.
I think random selection would be more effective for me than the current Netflix algo(s).
It's been a great decade for horror.
I think Oculus (2013) was the first movie to genuinely scare me. Other favorites: The Babadook (2014), The Witch (2015), Get Out (2017), Hereditary (2018), Us (2019).