Hereditary's reviews
Media reviews
El Periódico
'Hereditary' is successively disturbing, bizarre and absolutely demential, and in the way not only it exposes that its main characters started to destroy their consanguineous and themselves way before this apparently inexplicable torment hovered over them; it also suggests that, whatever the nature of that evil is, it has no intention of sparing no one.
El Mundo
Aster manages to graduate the fever of the strange from the disturbing tranquility of a happy family to the closest thing to an abyss. The strategy is swing genres. From the most obvious drama to the uncontrolled panic; from the certainty of the obvious to the shock and doubt of the magical.
Fotogramas
It's original, amazing and perfect in every sense. The filmmaker does something as difficult as slide between different horror traditions and take influences from other movies (from 'The Shining' to 'Don't Look Now') without falling for nostalgia or generating a simple updated reflection of them. Her movie dialogues with the genre and, at the same time, it speaks its own aesthetic and emotional language.
Time Out
"A harrowing story of unthinkable family tragedy that veers into the realm of the supernatural, 'Hereditary' takes its place as a new generation's The Exorcist?for some, it will spin heads even more savagely".
The A.V. Club
In its seriousness and hair-raising craftsmanship, 'Hereditary' belongs to a proud genre lineage, a legacy that stretches back to the towering touchstones of American horror, unholy prestige-zeitgeist classics like 'The Exorcist' and 'Rosemary?s Baby'. Remarkably, it?s a first feature, the auspicious debut of writer-director Ari Aster, whose acclaimed, disturbing short films were all leading, like a tunnel into the underworld, to this bleak vision.
The Playlist
"This is a remarkable, triumphant, and confident picture by Aster, who gives the film an almost meditative-like sensation, as you feel every space you?re in, every emotion, every moment of grief. 'Hereditary' refuses to employ cheap thrills, creating its cinematic scares with atmosphere, and continuously reinventing itself at every turn".
ABC
The key is in focusing everything on the mother, a sensational Toni Collette in the reunion of anonymous orphans, in the dinner that ends up with a discussion or when her eyes change in mid-infernal possession. Besides her, the other actors seem to be... possessed.
El País
The heterodox narrative which the key sequence is resolved with, culminated with the cry of a Toni Collette that sometimes seems to spit the fire of hell, represents the constant inventive that fragments this tale suspended over the foundations of the real perturbation. if the horror genre is living a new golden age, the first feature film length of Ari Aster seemed predestined to be its cathedral.
Screen Daily
Algunos puntos del argumento les serán familiares a los aficionados del terror, y el alargado final de la película carece de la calma y la eficiencia de lo que viene antes. Pero esas reservas no detractan a uno del suspense asegurado de Aster, quien se preocupa por sus personajes complejos que convirtieron sus vidas en un lío mucho antes de la muerte de su matriarca.
The Hollywood Reporter
"'Hereditary' takes the core haunting element of a spirit with a malevolent agenda and runs with it in a seemingly endless series of unexpected directions over two breathless hours of escalating terror that never slackens for a minute".
Variety
"Ari Aster directs slowly, meditatively, purging the film of any of the usual horror-video razzmatazz. Instead, he creates scary coherent spaces for the audience to sink into".
The Verge
Aster directs the film with a scrupulous focus on that intensity. Over and over, he returns to close-ups of his characters? faces as they take in some grotesque offscreen horror that strains the limits of their sanity. He never makes these shots short and efficient: they?re drawn out like studies in the facial mechanics of fear.
Indiewire
"Writer-director Ari Aster's first feature culls from a tradition of slick, elegant genre filmmaking, making up what it lacks in originality with an impressive volume of atmospheric dread".
Vanity Fair
Writer-director Ari Aster, making a promising feature debut, has created plenty of forbidding atmosphere; there?s almost no shot in the film that isn?t filled with creeping dread. But 'Hereditary' ultimately engages on a more emotional and intellectual register than it does on the visceral.
Cinemanía
The movie becomes a succession of exciting elements that, joined by those the trailer already promised, create in the viewer expectations very hard to overcome. It's probably the best role of Toni Collette up to the date, in behalf of 'Little Miss Sunshine''s. Her character tries to cover all the roads opened by Aster.
Festival Internacional de Cine de Lanzarote