The Official Last Movie You Saw Thread (Part 2)

[KCKUKFan]

I feel like audiences probably don't like it because it's a little plodding until the end, and also SPOILERS COMING it deals with the violent death of a child.

The "crazy stuff" is what makes it a horror film. Before the crazy stuff it's a very heavy drama. That's uninteresting.

I don't read MORE SPOILERS the witchy occult/Satanism as wonk but a trope that fits neatly into the history of the horror genre. If you don't buy that, horror probably isn't for you. It's not a genre for cold logical rationalism. It's a style full of people acting the way nobody really does and believing in stuff that only people in ancient literature believed in.

I guess some clarification is in order: obviously, I don't mind occult/possession/Satanism/paranormal stuff in horror movies, because if you didn't have it, you wouldn't have the genre. And I love the horror genre. But for a horror movie to work, it has to entertain me first and foremost, since I don't scare easily at the typical genre tropes. It has to feel like a jolt of adrenaline. "Hereditary" didn't feel like this. It felt like an hour-long punch to the gut, so by the time the proverbial shit started hitting the fan, I wasn't scared, but rather bored and annoyed. I probably wouldn't have liked it any more, but I would've had more appreciation for the film if it had just committed fully to the "disintegrating family" story that it so painfully spent an hour building up and worked as a meditation on grief and pain. It would've fit in nicely with such feel-good emotional torture porn treasures as "Happiness."

Also, I'm of the opinion that (MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS) watching Toni Collette fall to pieces after finding her headless child in the backseat of her car ten times more horrifying than any shots of her flying across the ceiling or Gabriel Byrne catching fire.

[Joneslab]

Also, I'm of the opinion that (MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS) watching Toni Collette fall to pieces after finding her headless child in the backseat of her car ten times more horrifying than any shots of her flying across the ceiling or Gabriel Byrne catching fire.

This is the distinction that has to be made about Hereditary.

That scene in the car (and Colette's reaction) is probably the most horrifying thing I've ever seen at the movies.

But it's a stultifying, gross, obscenely heavy type of horror. That's why I compared it to Todd Solondz's films above. I agree with you that it's the worst kind of horror; Stephen King has gone there before (many times), including in Pet Sematary.

The movie lays too heavy on the chest early on. It isn't a quote-unquote Horror Movie. The genre trappings release it from being a nightmare that makes you feel horrible about yourself. Nobody wants to go to the movies to feel like their guts have been scooped out.

There are a lot of movies where kids die. Sometimes those deaths are shown. That isn't new. But the movie chooses to explain the child's death in the context of this wicked-assed Satanic cult, and that's when the entertainment comes in. Because the child's death is neatly explained, as is the entire family lineage.

A movie about a tragic family who loses a child isn't something I want to pay money to go to the theater to see.

[KCKUKFan]

I see what you're saying, but at the same time, this movie spent so much time establishing a mood that when it did a 180 into standard horror fare, it weakened the (dour, depressing) screws that it had driven into the audience in the first hour.

This is a movie that wanted it both ways, and in the end, succeeded wholly at neither.

On a similar topic (and because you mentioned it), I'm thoroughly excited for the "Pet Sematary" reboot coming early next year. The early casting is ace (Jason Clarke, John Lithgow), the directors have made a number of highly creepy shorts, and word on the street is that the script has ditched all of the campiness that plagued the 89 original. "Monkey Paw" rip-off or not, "Pet Sematary" is perhaps the most frightening novel I've ever read, and "Hereditary" could take notes from it on how to combine family tragedy and the supernatural. Hoping for the best.

[Joneslab]

I don't know. I find burying a child in an animal cemetery and having him come back to life pretty wonky.

Which is my point. The whole genre is wonky. If you set out to make a horror film, then go there full bore. I love these recent horror movies because they set up their conceits as not horror movies--a children's book; a visit to meet your white girlfriend's parents; teenagers having sex in a shelled-out Detroit; the death of a twisted grandma--and then go all in with the genre silliness after all that stuff is set up. It's kind of like what Christopher Nolan did with the Batman movies. If you take a stupid-ass comic book idea and dress it up as a straightfaced crime film like Heat, then the viewer forgets that what he's watching is a person dressing up like a bat and solving crimes.

I think we might be in a sort of golden age of the horror movie.

[Joneslab]

I'll throw Cabin in the Woods in the new crop of great horror as well, though that's a movie where the silliness is a theme.

[KCKUKFan]

I'll throw Cabin in the Woods in the new crop of great horror as well, though that's a movie where the silliness is a theme.

Loved "Cabin In The Woods." Perfect example of a movie that was never particularly scary, but what an adrenaline rush.

[KCKUKFan]

I'm still not sure that I agree. Most of this new crop of horror movies work better as dramas than horror films. When I think horror, I think balls-out creativity and a certain level of silliness or fun ("Cabin In The Woods," "A Nightmare On Elm Street," "IT"). Or if it is rooted in reality, it better have a damn good gimmick ("A Quiet Place," "It Follows").

I want FUN with my horror flicks. A little winking snark. It's the horror movie that is rooted first and foremost in deep-seated personal drama that don't move me as genre exercises - "Don't Look Now," "Rosemary's Baby," "The Exorcist," "Hereditary," etc. All of which are fine dramas. You could argue that "Pet Sematary" falls into this category, but it pretty much makes its insidious, campier intentions clear from the get-go. In some of these flicks, you barely notice elements of horror until the very end, Donald Sutherland's naked ass notwithstanding.

I guess it's one of the things that makes horror such an intriguing genre -- different things move different people, and nobody is wrong. I know people who won't even approach "The Exorcist" DVD case in a store, wherein I find it almost comical.

Side note: I STILL don't understand why people call "Get Out" a horror movie.

[Joneslab]

Get Out is a mind control movie along the lines of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The hypnosis element and the "sunken place" thing take it very close to horror, but it could easily be seen as psychological suspense or something like that. Probably a very fine line.

[KCKUKFan]

Get Out is a mind control movie along the lines of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The hypnosis element and the "sunken place" thing take it very close to horror, but it could easily be seen as psychological suspense or something like that. Probably a very fine line.

Or a black (pun sort've intended) comedy, which is how I took it.

[Joneslab]

Why critics love Hereditary and audiences don't:

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/hereditary-is-a-critical-success-a-box-office-smash-but-do-people-actually-like-it-1.3531029

As I was coming out of theater somebody said "What in the world was that s___t?" I chalk this up to the fact that the movie is slow, plodding, and highly uncomfortable.

[Joneslab]

And it's been almost a week and I'm still thinking about that movie.

I've been nicer to my family because of it. I've sought out interviews from the little girl because I just want to know she's okay and, you know, not a beheaded witch.

That movie messed with my head in a major way.

[KCKUKFan]

I forgot about the movie almost immediately after leaving the theater. My wife, too, and she typically loves those sorts of things.

Critics like it because it's well made; the director might be a first-timer, but he obviously has movie-making chops. The acting was mostly good. It was visually accomplished.

But, unless you're a very certain type of person, the movie isn't particularly scary and it definitely isn't fun -- which, as we were talking about above -- is what mass audiences want from their horror flicks. For better or worse.

"Hereditary" is "Mother!" without the pretension or the balls-out insanity. Both movies are interesting failures, IMO.

[Joneslab]

Mother! is far more art house-y.

[KCKUKFan]

Mother! is far more art house-y.

Hence "pretension."

[KCKUKFan]

Another thing:

I think this new wave of cerebral horror movies can still be fun.

"It Follows" succeeded, because it seamlessly weaved 80s awesomeness (that score, man!) with a tongue planted firmly in cheek. It was slow, not a lot of horrific stuff actually happened, but it was still fun. It was a thinking man's horror film that managed to have it both ways.

Movies like "Hereditary," "It Comes At Night," and "The Witch" all felt like the cinematic equivalent of an indoor mausoleum: musty, dank, depressing. No fun. For some people, that absolutely works. For most folks, it's just a drag.