Her

I’ve told you how Ms. Spenser is always asking me to queue up more scary movies, and how my choices don’t always frighten. I was pretty sure Hereditary (2018) would satisfy.

The credits start by showing you a complicated, detailed doll house. It zooms into a boy’s room, and the boy inside wakes up. That’s how you know you’re in an art house kind of horror movie. The family who lives in this house includes Toni Collette (Fright Night), looking very Frances McDormand. She is an artist who creates miniatures, like the doll house in the credits, and she has a lot of problems. Her husband is Gabriel Byrne, a bit of a nobody. They have a teen son who mostly likes to get quietly high, and a younger daughter named Charlie (Millie Shapiro) who is a bit odd. She draws all the time and prefers to stay in the treehouse.

They are going to the funeral of Collette’s mother, who had been living with them. In Collette’s “eulogy”, she talks about how abusive her mentally ill mother had been, and basically says good riddance. But are they rid of her?

I’m going to skip the spoilers for some reason (I don’t think anyone is going to read this) - let’s just say that a horrible event occurs, leaving Collette with more grief and the rest of the family numb. Collette goes to a group grief counseling session, which everyone thinks is about her mother - they can’t keep up with the tragedies. At the session, she meets a woman who might have a way to contact the dead. This might not be a good idea.

From there it gets quite freaky, but maybe the best parts are in the first acts, when the horror comes from the kind of family you can get stuck with, and the things that can happen to your kids and loved ones.

But there are two things going for this movie. First, it is a well-crafted story, directed by first-timer Ari Aster with real artistry. But Toni Collette really carries this movie, and that’s what makes it great.