Colonial inheritance

Hereditary (d. Ari Aster)

Where exactly does the movie takes place? The miniatures adds to the eerieness and Muriel (1994) + the single mom from The Sixth Sense (1999) ramps up the creepiness. The unlocatability and everywhereness of the film indicates the universal effects and cluelessness of white settler colonialism. The film could be set in North America or Australia and New Zealand. The “evil” is otherized with a book that may be in Sanskrit. “What language is that?”, the white folks keep saying. And evil is also made familiar with the figure of the hysterical woman. The gender politics are more than a little problematic even if the film tries to play it off with nudity of both genders. The taboo of showing a child getting killed is actually offset by the casting of child actress herself. Can you imagine if the kid was pretty? She is perfectly cast because she has the air and look of someone preternaturally older. Even the son has a look that can be read as vaguely white; is he Mediterranean? Latin? His phenotypical appearance doesn’t quite fit in with the family look. His ascension to evil is made easier that way. What’s missing is the colonial history itself since the film does look like it is set in Muriel’s country, Australia. If these are ghosts of the dead, then where are those of the Aborigines’? Why is colonialism not the cause of the hauntings? The death, evil, and destruction of the white nuclear family is displaced to a distant evil when settler colonialism is the destructive force itself. The renderings of the home, miniature houses, and tree house, indicates the enduring idea of settler colonialism and its legacies: wealth, security, home, family, nation. As always, what’s horrific in haunted house stories is the probability of a depreciated property values rather than headless bodies lurking in its attic. The final scene of the cult? They’re praying to Capitalism so they may not fall victims to it even if they already are. Clever horror film except it won’t name the true evils of the world.

#2018 #December