Hereditary
***Warning, contains spoilers***
I had been really nervous to see this film. The critic reviews made it sound terrifying. 'I couldn't sleep after watching this movie' was just one of the many comments I read on rotten tomatoes. The critics gave this movie a whopping 90% score which should mean the movie is outstanding. However, I was suspicious because I have never seen such a huge difference between the critic score and the members of the public score, who only gave it 56% with some terrible reviews.
Was this going to be a true epic horror movie? Or was this going to be another over hyped horror movie? Sadly, what you ended up with was the most over hyped horror movie since the Blair Witch Project, and what a load of over hyped rubbish that was!
Where the movie draws you in is in the terrifying looking trailer and of course the critic reviews. When you read things like 'I couldn't sleep after watching this movie' of course it makes you want to see it.
Firstly, the positives. Toni Collettes performance as the slowly going crazy mother was outstanding. When she started screaming in despair at the death of her daughter you really beloved she was suffering. She probably deserves an Oscar for her performance. That DOESN'T mean the movie deserves an Oscar though, and there is a huge difference between a great performance by one actress and a great movie.
I was incredibly dissapointed by the performance of the usually great Gabriel Byrne though. Often mumbling his lines, it really felt like he was phoning this performance in for his paycheck sadly.
Another positive of the movie is the music, when the movie is building up to something slightly scary happening it uses scary music so well done there.
Plus there is about 35 minutes in the movie that is actually good nerve wracking horror, completely spoiled by the ending though and we will get to that later.
Right, the negatives which sadly far outweigh the positives I previously outlined. I've already said the dissapointment with Gabriel Byrnes performance, but on top of that the other actors excluding Toni Collette all seem to be doing the minimum rather than putting the effort in. That may sound harsh, but they just didn't feel believable.
Next is what I call a 'dead end' storyline. The son in this movie makes friends with a girl that he clearly has a crush on and in most horror movies they would get together and there would be scenes with him and her in the haunted house trying to solve the mystery. Not in this movie, they simply and randomly just dropped that storyline.
Then you have the fact that for about the first hour and 5 minutes only one thing happened, namely the death of the daughter. Yes, that was horrific and the lead actress crying at the death was very believable and upsetting but after that the movie just went back to group counselling sessions and the lead actress talking to her new found friend. Oh, and lots of supposedly tense awkward silences. I see what the director was trying to do with these, build up the tension, but all they succeeded in making me do was look at my watch and, something I've never done in a horror movie before, nearly fall asleep! Seriously it was that dull!
Following that you had about maybe 45 minutes of absolute horror where the mother became possessed and the dad ending up being burned alive followed by scary scenes where the possessed mum chased her son through the house into the attic. At that stage I thought, maybe the movie has saved itself, but, alas, no onto the ridiculous ending.
So the son falls through the glass window and it's all scary but then he gets up and you end up with the most ridiculous and in fact laughable ending to a movie I've ever seen. People in the audience were laughing at how ridiculous it was I kid you not. I myself was saying to myself 'what on earth am I watching?'. I won't spoil it for you in case you watch the movie but the ending is utterly, utterly ridiculous and hilarious. A complete joke.
Two ladies in front of me muttered after the movie 'what a load of tosh' and the other said 'there's two hours of my life I'll never get back'. But I can't argue with them they are right, as are the people reviews on rotten tomatoes but not the critic reviews.
Over hyped, this movie was only saved from getting no stars by the 35 minutes of the movie that were actually scary and the outstanding performance of the lead actress, Toni Collette. She is wasted in this movie and I hope she gets given a better film to star in in the near future as she deserves it.
For all the reasons above I'm giving this over hyped load of tosh the 2 star review it deserves. So dissapointed. My advice? Don't bother!
*This review is all my own work, please don't reproduce without my permission but please visit my advertisers pages as they help keep the blog going, thankyou. :-)
I had been really nervous to see this film. The critic reviews made it sound terrifying. 'I couldn't sleep after watching this movie' was just one of the many comments I read on rotten tomatoes. The critics gave this movie a whopping 90% score which should mean the movie is outstanding. However, I was suspicious because I have never seen such a huge difference between the critic score and the members of the public score, who only gave it 56% with some terrible reviews.
Was this going to be a true epic horror movie? Or was this going to be another over hyped horror movie? Sadly, what you ended up with was the most over hyped horror movie since the Blair Witch Project, and what a load of over hyped rubbish that was!
Where the movie draws you in is in the terrifying looking trailer and of course the critic reviews. When you read things like 'I couldn't sleep after watching this movie' of course it makes you want to see it.
Firstly, the positives. Toni Collettes performance as the slowly going crazy mother was outstanding. When she started screaming in despair at the death of her daughter you really beloved she was suffering. She probably deserves an Oscar for her performance. That DOESN'T mean the movie deserves an Oscar though, and there is a huge difference between a great performance by one actress and a great movie.
I was incredibly dissapointed by the performance of the usually great Gabriel Byrne though. Often mumbling his lines, it really felt like he was phoning this performance in for his paycheck sadly.
Another positive of the movie is the music, when the movie is building up to something slightly scary happening it uses scary music so well done there.
Plus there is about 35 minutes in the movie that is actually good nerve wracking horror, completely spoiled by the ending though and we will get to that later.
Right, the negatives which sadly far outweigh the positives I previously outlined. I've already said the dissapointment with Gabriel Byrnes performance, but on top of that the other actors excluding Toni Collette all seem to be doing the minimum rather than putting the effort in. That may sound harsh, but they just didn't feel believable.
Next is what I call a 'dead end' storyline. The son in this movie makes friends with a girl that he clearly has a crush on and in most horror movies they would get together and there would be scenes with him and her in the haunted house trying to solve the mystery. Not in this movie, they simply and randomly just dropped that storyline.
Then you have the fact that for about the first hour and 5 minutes only one thing happened, namely the death of the daughter. Yes, that was horrific and the lead actress crying at the death was very believable and upsetting but after that the movie just went back to group counselling sessions and the lead actress talking to her new found friend. Oh, and lots of supposedly tense awkward silences. I see what the director was trying to do with these, build up the tension, but all they succeeded in making me do was look at my watch and, something I've never done in a horror movie before, nearly fall asleep! Seriously it was that dull!
Following that you had about maybe 45 minutes of absolute horror where the mother became possessed and the dad ending up being burned alive followed by scary scenes where the possessed mum chased her son through the house into the attic. At that stage I thought, maybe the movie has saved itself, but, alas, no onto the ridiculous ending.
So the son falls through the glass window and it's all scary but then he gets up and you end up with the most ridiculous and in fact laughable ending to a movie I've ever seen. People in the audience were laughing at how ridiculous it was I kid you not. I myself was saying to myself 'what on earth am I watching?'. I won't spoil it for you in case you watch the movie but the ending is utterly, utterly ridiculous and hilarious. A complete joke.
Two ladies in front of me muttered after the movie 'what a load of tosh' and the other said 'there's two hours of my life I'll never get back'. But I can't argue with them they are right, as are the people reviews on rotten tomatoes but not the critic reviews.
Over hyped, this movie was only saved from getting no stars by the 35 minutes of the movie that were actually scary and the outstanding performance of the lead actress, Toni Collette. She is wasted in this movie and I hope she gets given a better film to star in in the near future as she deserves it.
For all the reasons above I'm giving this over hyped load of tosh the 2 star review it deserves. So dissapointed. My advice? Don't bother!
*This review is all my own work, please don't reproduce without my permission but please visit my advertisers pages as they help keep the blog going, thankyou. :-)
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