'Hereditary' (2018) Movie Review

The less I say about Hereditary, the better, so I’ll try to keep this brief. What’s important is that this stands as one of the best horror movies in years. It moves in unexpected ways, overflows with bonkers great performances, and builds to a genre crescendo that rips out your still-beating heart and shows it to you. Writer/director Ari Aster crafts a creepy, cryptic, moody horror tone poem about coping with grief and loss and family that rattles and shakes in deep, profound ways.

'Hereditary' Trailer: Sundance Horror Favorite Gets Tense And Unnerving

Navigating festival hype is a tricky business. Folks see a movie in the film festival bubble, with film festival goggles, and before you know it, there’s a swirling eddy of buzz and hyperbole calling a particular offering one of the greats. That happens all the time, especially at Sundance, which may or may not still be happening, I don’t know. All too often, the hype either subsides, we never hear from the film again, or when it does hit, it’s straight dookie. I can’t count how many times that’s happened. This year, one of the next best biggest greatest was Ari Aster’s horror mystery Hereditary, and while I’m wary or the hype monster, hot damn this first trailer. This is fire, both literally and figuratively.