Genre Research: Hereditary

    Hereditary, the 2018 drama/horror, was one of the most surprising films of that year. The cinematography in this film was innovative and very unique at its core. The camera angles and movements specifically were shocking and very surprising considering the trailer didn't really showcase this. The use of wide and high angle shots made for an overall, all-seeing eye experience. Additionally, the film used the god's eye angle to make the viewer feel as if they were watching over the character in the film. In Hereditary, the mother creates dollhouses and the director played with the wide-angle shot to make their house look like it was a dollhouse as well. I thought this was the most clever use of camera angles throughout the movie and something I've personally never seen before.

    Sound in this movie was unique as well. Many of the sounds were made inside a foley studio. This is a studio where a team makes sounds for a film using everyday objects, such as the cracking of celery for a nose break. This creates a crisper sound for events in the movie. Footsteps, doors creaking, and knocks on wood were used in this movie a lot, throughout the house that the family lived in. This plays into editing as well. Lighting throughout the movie was dark, which follows the standard horror movie conventions of low lighting and long shadows. The filmmakers played with this a lot as the characters travel throughout the house at night. Additionally, the use of practical lighting was at play as the characters lit candles and turned on lights to brighten scenes. Long, drawn-out scenes were used to almost giving the viewers a POV type feel. Moreover, this created more suspense and mystery to the jump scare scenes in the film.

    The film followed standard conventions of the horror genre with its use of dim lighting and quiet, drawn-out scenes to terrify viewers. Many, including me, left the theater wondering about many of the character's fates because the director left the movie on sort of a cliffhanger if you will. This is the reason I really enjoyed this movie and many other movies similar in this genre. The horror films that leave you more psychologically scarred than physically, are the better ones in my opinion.