Sticking with my Halloween plan, even though I am past my end date, I finally had a chance to check out Hereditary, starring Toni Collette.

My first impression after viewing was what the hell did I just watch???!!!

To be honest, I am surprised that I even finished it. I struggled with this movie almost from the beginning. It was slow in starting, with a few odd things happening here and there but after the "incident" with Toni's character's children, I really considered turning it off.

Backing up, the premise is as followed: Annie, played by Toni, who cared for her rather estranged mother in the final months of her mother's life, explains to those who attend her mother's funeral that her mother led a secret life and kept many secrets in her life. (Although later you get the serious impression, Annie knew about Mom's secrets.)

At the funeral you can clearly see that something is very off about Charlie, Annie's youngest child, a daughter. The movie goes to show you that Charlie had a very strong attachment to the grandmother. This is because Annie basically gave Charlie, the little girl, to the grandmother.

And if Charlie wasn't weird enough before grandma's death, she gets even weirder after, even cutting animal heads off.

In the meanwhile, weird things are manifesting in the house. You get the impression that Annie has an idea but lives in total denial about the truth regarding her mother, her husband and her children, odd Charlie and pot smoking teenage son Peter.

And then there is a horrible incident with her two children that even I was like, ummmmmmmm, no. I don't want to give away what happened but Peter's response and the aftermath or lack thereof, for me, takes away credibility for this movie.

But I continued, hoping it would all come together. I was wrong. The ending is so ridiculous, with Annie flying everywhere, I just sat there-probably with my mouth agape, staring at the wall-trying to figure out what the hell did I just watch.

So, I watched this Saturday night and as it is now Monday, I still am shaking my head. I understand the ending. I understand what happens but there are so many issues with the story itself, aside from missing information--which the director does assume the audience will string together to understand the whole picture, having characters the audience doesn't care about or if they survive, the head cutting scenes, the sudden and out of nowhere King Paimon connection, and Annie flying around it just felt ridiculous.

Granted Toni Collette does a decent job of being in denial and losing her sanity in her grief and there a few decent "scares/jumps", overall it just falls flat and looks ridiculous. And again, it also doesn't help if you don't care for the characters, and I really did not care for Peter-especially because of his denial of what he did to Charlie , who by the end of the movie is the ultimate victim.

In a follow up article I read, the author and director argues that this movie moves on a deeper level, that it is a reflection of how families can sometime cause mental health break downs in the long run. Being a social worker, yes, I agree but when granny is worshiping the 7th King of Hell or whatever, you don't let her near your kids. It's kinda that simple.

csk