It Still Leaves me Disturbed

What’s a book or movie that genuinely scared you?

By Andrew R. Duckworth

I have seen my fair share of horror films. It was once one of my favorite genres. It isn’t any longer. I’ve learned to invest my time and energy in things that promote a more adventure-going atmosphere. But yet, I still think there is a bit of value in the horror genre, even if it is something I actively don’t engage in and, in fact, stay away from. The fact is that everyone is different and we know what we can take and what we can’t.

Several years back, I was convinced I had seen all of the horror films that would ever strike fear in me. I was convinced such films were practically ineffective. They just didn’t scare me anymore. Perhaps I had become a bit desensitized to them. But I would be proven wrong in ways. Yes, it’s true that horror films often do not “scare” me, not in the ways that they once did. And then, in enters Ari Aster’s Hereditary.

I should preface the rest of this by saying that Hereditary is not the sort of frightening film that will give jump-scare after cheap jump-scare. It’s a slow burn. It creeps, little by little, into your skin and, in the last twenty or thirty minutes, jumps out at you like a wild and maddening nightmare… and it stays with you long after the film is done.

In that way, Hereditary did not just frighten me. Hereditary disturbed me. It is one of the only films in recent memory that has done such a thing. Even The Exorcist did not disturb me on such a level, and I was at one point fully convinced that The Exorcist would be the film to beat for any director wanting to make a truly terrifying film.

Every component of the film is designed to disturb, from the score of the film with lengthy droning hums and notes, to the color pallet that sticks to the darker hues, utilizing brighter colors only sparingly. And then, of course, is the gruesome imagery from about midway through the film to the end in different scenes. The film’s finale is perhaps the worst of these.

The subtle hints at what will come at the end offer just enough to unsettle, leaving the heavy punches for the end of the film. But the part that really creeps in is the understanding that the main characters are helpless without realizing it. They have no control over what occurs throughout the narrative. At the end of the film there is this understanding that even those moments that seemed accidental to the characters were carefully orchestrated to bring them to a specific point in their journeys. The revelation at the end of the film is equal parts fever dream, despair, and emotional turmoil. I won’t spoil the film for anyone who might want to see it. I will say, however, one needs a little bit of time and a lot of emotional strength to make it through the whole experience.