I loved so much of this, but everything I loved didn’t really pay off for me. What I loved about Hereditary — how much was expressed about grief, how detailed the characters were, how bone-chilling the story itself was, didn’t happen here. Moments that were technically incredible to me didn’t have much meaning, and the story felt lackluster. It wasn’t as gut punching as I expected, and I think it’s because the characters aren’t completely well drawn. There’s bits and pieces of information and development given, but not enough for my taste. I left feeling a bit empty. I’ll watch whatever Ari Aster does in the future, but I hope he returns to more character-involved stories like Hereditary. This probabaly doesn’t make sense but whatever.

UPDATE:
I wrote this in the hospital waiting room because my friend fainted right after seeing the movie. She’s totally fine now, but it was scary, and at first, I thought she was joking and pretending to be in the cult. It’s all better now, but interesting that Ari Aster’s work could sorta make that happen to someone? Shoutout to Emma <3