Must-see 'Hereditary' is both haunting and horrifying

Hereditary, the absolutely fantastic new horror film directed by Ari Aster, is a little like the anti-A Quiet Place. As much as I enjoyed that blockbuster breakout hit, it was a pretty straightforward, gimmicky exercise, albeit expertly done.

But Hereditary is looking to create far more insidious scares, the kind that creep into your dreams long after the movie is over.

I was heartened to see that the film opened well enough this past weekend, but saddened to learn that despite universal rave reviews, the movie is getting completely trashed by audiences (early reports showed a D+ Cinemascore).

I wish I could be surprised by that reaction, but unfortunately when it comes to genre films, particularly horror, mainstream audiences just don't seem to want anything thought-provoking or ambiguous. Hereditary owes much more of its DNA to a movie like The Shining than a slasher pic or even a crowd-pleaser like The Sixth Sense.

It's plot is complicated, its pacing deliberate and its resolution anything but comforting. Of course, I think that's why it's a great film, but maybe audiences just wanted jump scares, who knows?

Now, the movie is plenty scary -- but it almost just a really compelling family drama that happens to have some disturbing supernatural elements in it. Without spoiling to much, it's about a disintegrating family coping with the loss of a loved one and whose fraying bonds are exacerbated by more tragedy both real and surreal.

Anchoring everything is a truly remarkable Toni Collette performance.

She yet again shows off her ability to abandon vanity and test audience sympathies with a role that ranges from deeply moving to almost comically manic. The underrated Gabriel Byrne is her strong, quiet counterpart alongside their increasingly isolated children, played believably by Alex Wolff and Milly Shapiro.

The disintegration of this family coincides with a real corrosive sense of dread conveying without any tricks but just some very ominous scoring, cinematography and editing. As the plot starts to click in and the premise gets more fantastical, it all feels utterly convincing because the film has taken the time to really establish its characters and its world.

In it's last act, the film will definitely recall Rosemary's Baby for a lot of viewers, and its best it does reach the same paranoid heights as that film. I'm not entirely sure how well some of its plot elements hold together under close scrutiny, but I was on the edge of my seat throughout the movie and I think even if initial audiences reject it because it doesn't deliver what they expect from a horror film, others will embrace it for being as emotionally rich and satisfying as it is.

At a time when so many horror films, including quite a few thrilling ones, aren't really about anything, this movie is very much trying to say something about how death can terrorize a family, how familial pain can haunt us for years and nothing is more frightening -- sometimes -- than family.

This may be a truth too intense for some audiences to face. While Hereditary isn't particularly gory, it does have sequences that are hard to watch, but I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone who likes movies that have the ambition to at least try to blow your mind, because I think this movie when it's clicking on all cylinders, can.