Hereditary (Ari Aster, June 8, 2018) Movie • Page 27

Wow, he's only 30 years old. I like how energetic he is in this AMA, thanks for the link.

 

That’s what I took it to be. The plan I bet was to tell her about the seance at the group but when she didn’t come back they decided to try the flyer. When THAT didn’t work they had Joan “accidentally” run into her.

I feel like the whole thing had to be a cover or someone would have noticed how strange their behavior was.

 

What am I missing about this movie? I really wanted to love it but I was bored most of the time. There were only two truly frightening scenes (to me), the rest of the supposedly scary scenes I either saw in the trailer or laughed through because they were so ridiculous.

 

I think it's not so much a scary horror movie but a dark family drama with supernatural elements.

 

For me, I think the score helped in keeping the tension going.

 

I think the ending is the scariest part of the movie, but everything else that happened stayed with me for being so creepy and unsettling. The first time we see grandma standing in the studio, the charlie stuff, the score, the questioning of Annies reality, etc. All that made it the "scariest" movie i've seen in a while but scary in terms of unsettling, tension, etc.

 

Yeah I guess that's true. But they definitely marketed it as a horror movie which is why I was expecting that and probably why I was so disappointed by it

 

Just curious which parts were so ridiculous you laughed at?

 

I can see that, but I enjoyed what the movie actually was so much that I'm sure I liked it more than if it was another run of the mill haunted house cliche horror movie.

 

Whenever she would fly (glide? hover? idk) across the ceiling, when she was trying to behead herself in the attic, when she woke Peter up to get him to go downstairs for the seance (I think that was supposed to be unsettling, maybe not, but I found it funny), and the entire ending when they're in the treehouse--my sister and I could not stop laughing through that entire scene, I'm sure the other people in the theater were really annoyed by us.
And like I said, most of the other scenes I had seen in the trailer so they weren't as frightening/unsettling to me as they might have been had I not known they were coming. The only two scenes that I found unsettling were the accident and the seance.

 

I'm curious what scenes in horror movies worked for you if you thought all of that was funny enough to laugh out loud at.

 

I think there was a bit of black humor with the uncomfort of Annie trying to get the seance going in the middle of the night. The other stuff I can’t see how people though it was funny. Annie cutting her head off and the headless body floating was very scary to me.

 

Yes, the hysteria of the early morning seance was definitely attempts at black humor. Until shit got serious.

 

The headless floating body wasn’t funny to me, but definitely wasn’t scary. Just looked kinda awkward

 

A lot of exorcism/ghost movies don't do it for me; they're actually my least favorite type of horror movie because I just find them goofy and dull. The scene where she was in the corner was very creepy, but as soon as she was floating/crawling across the room it took me out of it. I wouldn't laugh, but it became more unbelievable.

The scene at the end where she floats into the tree house was the same way. I think if the headless body walked like a person into the room, it would have been more terrifying, for me.

 

I think it was the actual effects on it that kept that from being successful to me. It just didn’t look real, and not in a “this is unnatural and otherwordly” kind of way. I don’t remember it even looking particularly bloody or having much of a stump, which it clearly did in the treehouse.

 

I have wondered the same thing. A headless body climbing the ladder slowly is a version I would like to see. Floating can definitely work in horror but this just didn’t do it for me.

 

I think it works because it hits that surreal Lynch-ism type of unsettling for me. It walking instead of floating could have worked also sure but if you're already committing for a cult bringing back a demon from hell why not go all the way ya know lol

 

I got Lynchian vibes from that too

 

That’s the second time someone has brought up Lynch for that shot and I wish I could see the similarity. It didn’t seem dreamlike or surreal or disturbing, just odd. I really hope it hits me differently on second watch but everything about it just didn’t add up for me. Maybe it moved too quickly? I don’t know. The shadow cast over Peter is way creepier than the way it floated up to me.

 

Like my gut reaction to watching it was "wow that's completely absurd what the actual fuck" but in like fascination. I think it's really just one of those things that just really hits you or doesn't, because I don't begrudge people who found it fun or whatever because it IS absurd. I just interpreted the absurdity in a different way.

 

It honestly looked to me like it was being pulled up the ladder on a string

 

Idk like I thought once Peter jumps out, and you can still hear Annie cutting, and it kind of sounds like Charlie drawing, then you hear it stop and the head fall, then you see the shadow on Peter's body, I liked that scene a ton.

 

The delay and then the slumping sound out of frame was AMAZING.

 

Actually it's funny you bring up dreamlike, I felt like Peter's whole walk to the treehouse from waking up on the ground and being inside the treehouse was almost dreamlike. Just slowly meandering over, looking at the naked cult members in the woods watching him.....I really dug it.