CUNNINGKRUGER

I loved watching horror movies as a kid, but that love faded away as I grew up as the standard of the genre dropped. Now, I detest the typical horror movies, trying to pull off a constantly shrieking character with exaggerated makeup as a ghost or whatever. In an era of lazy storytelling in the genre, Hereditary standouts out as a movie based on which future horrer/thriller movies will be judged.

It is more of a family drama cum psychological thriller than a typical horror movie (similar to IT).

It starts off slow, and builds the story up in a very emotionally engaging way, with an amazing opening shot. The last 30 minutes of this movie might be the most mentally engaged I’ve been than any other movie in recent years. It does get a bit supernatural by the end and demands constant attention for you to keep up with all the pieces that are starting to come together for the story to make sense.

I am still a bit confused by the ending, which is more often than not, the sign of a good movie in this genre, as it leaves the meaning of the events that have transpired, for the viewer to interpret.

An amazingly directed story topped off by even more amazing performances by Toni Colette and Alex Wolff, which make this movie a must watch (and a must re-watch for me).

Also, if you watch this movie and like it, there is an amazing korean horror movie The Wailing, which in opinion is even better than Hereditary.

Many of my favorite hollywood movies have been from the 90s and this one adds to that list. The story revolves around the lives of two seemingly antithetical characters - a blind army veteran, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade and a virtuous high school student, Charlie Simms. Charlie is hired for the thanksgiving weekend by Colonel’s niece to take care of him while they are away, but little did he know that the Colonel had hatched a plan of his own. Both of these characters are at a crossroads in their lives, where they have to choose between an easier (the wrong) or a difficult (the right) path in their respective journeys.

Al Pacino, playing the tetchy blind army veteran delivers a stellar performance, who above all things in the world, loves women, and in his own words, “A very distant second is a Ferrari.” The story is not particularly great and Pacino essentialy carries the movie through his performance. The plot is plain, predictable, and offers very little in terms of engaging discourse. Albeit, Colonel’s plan with Charlie is one thing that kept me engaged.

Colonel Slade has a lot of catchphrases - most of which I found really funny. The timing & delivery of those will make you appreciate the performance even more. While playing a blind character, a lot of focus is on the eyes of the actor and I was occasionally remembering Pacino’s famous line from Scarface, “The eyes chico, they never lie.” Not many actors convey emotions well through their eyes, but Pacino isn’t one of them. Infact the performance wouldn’t have been this great if his eyes were covered more than they were.

The best part of this movie as I have emphasised, was Pacino’s acting and one of the factors that made it so great were his monologues. They are spread throughout the movie but the one at the end was the bomb. One of the greatest monologues to have ever been delivered in a movie. It is five minutes of pure acting genius on display with quintessential dialogue delivery and strong emotions. Without giving too much away I would like to share my favorite line from that monologue:

"There is nothing like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that."

One of the greatest performances ever to win an Oscar.