SCHLOCK AND AWE DOUBLE FEATURE

The tale of Two Families:

Hereditary (2018), Written and Directed by Ari Aster

Insidious Chapter 2, Written by Leigh Wannell, Director James Wan

In recent years the term ‘Elevated’ or ‘Social’ Horror has term flung around for a certain kind of Horror Movie.  It’s a difficult term to define.  Is it a more emotionally complex slow burn horror that has been made with the likes of It Follows, The VVitch, and the criminally under seen Doctor Sleep.  Or is it the Horror that people or critics that think is good.  The 2010s is the decade when Get Out and Shape of Water won Oscars, and very deserved ones.  It could be argued that ‘Elevated Horror’ doesn’t really exists, that it’s just it marketing tool. After all studios like A24 and Blumhouse to some extent, have been making their business plan that revolves around more Arthouse and genre blending Horror Movies with something else on their mind is not a new phenomenon, Candy Man, Godzilla, Night of the Living Dead, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and even Bob Clarke’s Deathdream.  Metaphors are a pretty important pillar when it comes to creativity, even if it is filled with jump scares, gore, and multiple decapitations.    

In this column I am looking at between two Horror movies from the Twenty Teens, Ari Aster’s Debut from 2018 Hereditary, and Melbourne buddies James Wan and Leigh Wannell's Insidious Chapter 2 from 2013.  Two movies, one considered Oscar Snubbed (Oscar Justice for Toni Collette) the other the second in a Franchise.  Movies with similar objectives but different ways of getting there.  Two Family's, the Grahams from Hereditary and the Lambert's from Insidious.  Both middle class families who able to live, and some cases move to another ghost appropriate houses.  But each family unit deals with the evil hiding in the corners very differently.

Ari Aster’s Hereditary is one hell of a debut, it’s a stylish, disturbing and confident, where the imagery sticks to your ribs.  Mourning the death of a family matriarch, Toni Collette tries to take control but through a series of events and grief descends into madness or maybe possession.  It’s a story of what is passed down between families, like antique tables, genetic illness or a Malevolent Entity that has a thing for heads. Hereditary fits into the A24 mold, it’s auteur driven, a slow burn horror with an added flavour.  For me Hereditary is an okay Family Drama and an amazing Horror Movie.  I tend to prefer Aster’s sophomore effort Midsommer, it’s more expansive, weirder it has more texture.  Aster is at his best when he is using archetypes because in his both of his two movies, he feels like he is very interested in occult or cult like behavior and the traditions and mythologies they build.  But who knows in his third he could do something different, a romantic comedy maybe.  In this respect Hereditary is a solid movie, a solid constructed oak table of a movie, a possessed oak table.  Hereditary is a movie that wears it’s heart on it’s sleeve, in a movie that is asking the if there is fate are there any accidents or consequences?  Because of this notion, Hereditary feels stage bound, the set design is a tad too large, door frames to wide, ceilings to high, just like the models Toni Collette builds.  On my second viewing of Hereditary I noticed how stripped back and 1970s it felt.  As much as Aster likes to work in story archetypes, it’s just as  much a character portrait of Toni Collette’s character as much as it is about a haunted family that cannot stop tearing itself apart.  Collette is incredible in Hereditary, her portrayal of grief, desperation and madness is panic attack inducing.  The image of her possessed, crawling around on the ceiling and slicing her own head off with piano wire is an indelible image, in a movie filled with indelible images.    

 

Insidious Chapter 2, written by Leigh Wannell and Directed by James Wan is also about a family haunted by evil specters.  Produced and distributed by Blumhouse, a very Roger Corman – American International style company, like A24, Blumhouse has a very produced style, but the output tends to be more varied, such as in 2017 their released movies included Happy Death Day, the Oscar winning Get Out and an Amityville sequel.  Wannell and Wan   Insidious Chapter 2 starts almost straight after the first Insidious ends.  Patrick Wilson has managed to get his son back from the Spirit World and the Ghosts who want to feed on him with the help of clairvoyant Lin Shay, but there’s a catch, there’s more Ghosts ready to create havoc.  Insidious 2 is fun, it’s filled with Jump scares, creepy shadows and Patrick Wilson’s beautiful space turning to candle wax.  More traditional horror yes, but Wannell and Wan are no slouches when it comes to Horror, first with 2004’s Saw that introduced Torture Porn and then again with in 2010 with the first Insidious an example of low budget high profit Blumhouse model and then The Conjuring which has fashioned it’s own Marvel styled universe.  Insidious Chapter 2 is a great example of Blockbuster movie making.  The second Insidious is a self contained story, but at the same time it’s big and with lots of lore, too much lore,it spills out into the other movies.  It’s a discombobulating experience to have Lin Shay's more fabulous seasoned voice coming out of her younger version played by Lindsay Seim.  Insidious Chapter 2 is about a family surrounded  by all the ghosts,  in fact the house, which is perfectly spooky, is incidental to the story, unlike Hereditary where the set design is an essential part of the storytelling, while Insidious is about the Lambert Family and how they are being haunted.  For me it was a relief  watching the first Insidious it was nice that they left what they thought was a haunted house pretty quickly only to find out, the Ghosts follow you where ever you go.

 Wan is a go big or go home director, Insidious 2 is meant to circle around to the beginning, but it’s far too nutty to be that neat.  I was not expecting the Sleepaway Camp element popping up, and if you haven’t seen that reference, do yourself a favour and watch it, in terms of insanity and indelible images.  Insidious Chapter 2 is just fun, lots of jump scares, terror gags and a great genre cast, the a fore mentioned Patrick Wilson and Lin Shay, Leigh Wannell makes and appearance and if her have Jocelin Donahue and Barbara Hershey playing the same person you are doing something right.  The Insidious Franchise is comforting, you know already where the grooves are and you can settle in and enjoy. 

Like Hereditary, Insidious 2 is a family dramas, and both are looking into the notion of what is past down from generation to generation.  Haunted House Stories are designed to look into the past and how it effects the present.  The Families in both movies create their own ghosts and demons, one through a very organized cult the other through a family clairvoyant gift.  These elements of grief and trauma are used to show the family bound grow closer or being torn apart.  Funnily enough each movie has a clairvoyant guide.  But you can never trust Ann Dowd, never ever.