I believe people are seeing this for the wrong reason. If you want your typical horror movie you been conditioned to like: Jumpscares every 15mins and typical horror tropes, than THIS IS NOT YOUR MOVIE. This movie is a slow moving but heavily detail oriented film. It operates in belief that you will follow many scenes details and leave clues all over the film. Its wonderfully shot and long takes make moment feel unsettling. There is gore and many interesting concepts but its a hard story to follow and understand on the first viewing. This is what the horror genre (imo) should be unsettling imagery but also unsettling atmosphere not relying on a cheap scare tactic.

I feel compelled to defend this film because it was just that amazing! The people who are leaving bad reviews just.don't. get it. I mean this film is a horror masterpiece. A true horror film, it messes with your insides, it leaves you feeling defiled by the end of the film. It was awesome hearing the reactions in the theater especially during "that" first scene after the party. The director of this film directed the short "The Strange Thing About the Johnsons," so it's no surprise that this movie will shock you and it will leave you feeling some type of way for a good while, imo this is exactly what a horror film should do. Make your own judgment and watch this film.

Hereditary isn’t just a scary movie. It’s much, much, much worse than that.

Brian Truitt

USA Today

Hereditary is a great scare-fest and a middling domestic saga, one that probably needed to be either 90 minutes long and brimming with terror, or three hours long and suffused with glacial, Bergman-esque dread. Aster has charted a middle path, and for a first film, it’s hard to fault the skill he’s shown in doing it.

Creepy, creepy, creepy. Writer-director Ari Aster makes an impressively unnerving debut with Hereditary, a meticulously crafted horror thriller.

Ann Hornaday

Washington Post