Hereditary (Film Review)

2018 A24
Written and Directed by: Ari Aster
Starring: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, and Gabriel Byrne; MPAA Rating: R
Nicsperiment Score: 9/10

I greatly enjoyed 2015's The Witch, but as I walked out of the theater, I heard a group of departing teenagers say, "See, I told you not to trust Rotten Tomatoes." I did not love 2017's It Comes at Night, and felt it was falsely marketed, but the guy next to me in theater's response was a little more extreme. "I'm going to ask for my money back," he said. I've sung The Last Jedi's praises unendingly. When my cousin walked out of the theater with me after first viewing, he said, "I knew I should have trusted the audience score over the critics score." He absolutely hated it.
Upon their release, all three of these movies scored over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, a website which aggregates critical reviews. The percentage is that of reporting critics who liked the film. Rotten Tomatoes also allows regular folks to vote on the quality of a film. The average audience score for these three films? Fourty-nine. Yes, 49% of non-critics who watched these films had a positive reaction to them. The other 51% thought they stunk.
What's going on? Are today's critics that out-of-touch with the common man? Will they, after viewing so many similar movies, give a positive review to any movie that is out of the ordinary?
Hereditary, a horror film starring Toni Collette as a woman mourning her recently deceased mother, is certainly out of the ordinary. It currently sits at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, but with only a 57% in the audience score. Is this another case of critics jumping all over a turd, just because it's dressed in fine new clothing?
While Hereditary explores grief and trauma like 2014's The Babadook, it is indeed something completely new. Collette's character designs intricate miniatures for a living, and first-time director, Ari Aster, uses that aesthetic to establish a unique visual design for the film, alternating between long shots, and close-ups that swing around to reveal more of the room...and some things the audience might not want to see.
Collette's family is being torn apart by her struggle to deal with her mother-inflicted trauma, and her ineffectual husband, played by Gabriel Byrne (Irish brogue often blooming through the cracks of his put-on American accent), only seems able to fan the flames. Their two children cope in different ways, but it seems that even greater tragedies are waiting to befall them.
This is a film that is easily spoiled by any deeper description of its plot, especially as Aster takes the film, particularly in its latter moments, into some extremely unexpected places. The film is full of chilly haunted house scares, true to the way it was advertised, but no trailer or commercial even hints at what else is in store. Clearly, by my audience's reaction, it is these latter elements that are dividing the public. However, to give nothing away, those elements are the perfect, most logical payoff for the subjects of trauma and grief Aster wants to explore, and the film is loaded with foreshadowing as to its intended conclusions. The viewer may not like what happens, but as unpredictable and off-the-rails as Hereditary seems, it couldn't have gone any other way.
This is the uniting factor in all the films I've mentioned: they don't give the audience what they want--they instead give themselves what they actually need. I'm sure your average audience member would love for Collette to have a serial-killer nemesis to stab away, or a clear ghost to exorcise. Life doesn't always work that way. Thankfully, not every film does, either.