A tale of two halves where the first half explores family tragedy, survivor's guilt and bereavement. The second half is more focused on the slow burn horror. I can say with great joy that this is a supernatural folk horror movie with great payoff that still doesn't fill in every aspect for you, specifically a possible backstory you can interpret. The last 30 minutes of this movie has some of the most satisfying horror images through great camera blocking, suspense, and payoff to the rest of the story. Toni Collette gives a stupendous performance running the complete gambit of emotions. She goes through happiness, sorrowful, anger, and guilt in a way that few actors can do credibly. It's right there with the best performances in horror movies. The same can be said for Alex Wolff. At a little over two hours I think this movie is a little long. I'm glad there was payoff but I do think this could have been trimmed down a bit for a more concise movie.
The film starts with an opening text explaining that Ellen Taper Leigh (Kathleen Chalfant) has died. She is survived by her daughter Annie Graham (Toni Collette), son in law Steve Graham, grandson Peter (Alex Wolff), and granddaughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro). Annie works as a miniature artist and the first shot of the film is a slow establishing shot of that crafts room and it zooms into a room within their house where miniature becomes the real room. It is incredible and just a preview of some of the cinematography Pawel Pogorzelski does throughout to only make this better. They all go to the funeral and Annie speaks. Annie is surprised how many people are there. Annie then goes to a bereavement support group, lying to Steve saying she is going to the movies. In that group we learn that Annie's father was a depressive who died of starvation. Her brother a schizophrenic, hung himself after saying his mother was trying to put things inside of him. Ellen had a special relationship with Charlie and seemed to want to raise her herself. As a result Annie and Charlie are not close. Charlie even asks who will take care of her now that grandma is dead. Steve at one point gets a call about Ellen's grave being desecrated but keeps it from Annie. Peter is slacking off at school and smoking marijuana in between classes and on breaks.
At school that day we see Charlie cut off the head of a bird that hit a window near her classroom. She also sees a figure across the way leering at her. Peter goes to a party and takes Charlie with him after Annie implores him too. Peter gets up the courage to ask his crush, Bridget (Mallory Bechtel) to smoke weed with him. He tells Charlie to go eat some cake. Charlie, who has a severe peanut allergy eats the cake and starts to go into shock. Peter takes her away but on the road Charlie rolls a window down and leans out and gets decapitated by a telephone pole after Peter swerves to avoid a dead deer. Peter drives home in some kind of shock and Annie sees the body next morning. Annie blames Peter for the accident while Peter brings up the fact that she was the one who told her to go to the party in the first place. Annie seems to cope by doing more art and even does a miniature of the accident. Meanwhile, Annie meets Joan (Ann Dowd) who takes her to her house for a seance, as Joan's grandson had died. She teaches Joan how to do the seance and she does it with Peter and Steve to communicate with Charlie. The communication works but soon after Peter starts to see things and Annie starts to think Charlie's soul is not at rest.
Where do I start? Early in the movie Annie finds a note from her mother in a book apologizing to her and she sees her mother in a dark shadow but she is gone when she turns the light on. I love that because I love those type of shots over jump scares. They are more memorable to me. I like uncomfortable silence when characters who see something paranormal in horror movies. Later in the film there is an awesome sequence where the camera continuously moves slowly up and back as one character keeps walking and that blocking gives way to something seriously scary in the background. Before that even happens a character wakes up in the house not knowing about something sinister that has all ready happened. Shades of Torso. That alone would be good enough suspense but we see something go fast across the background, but again not a jump scare. No music and no reveal to the character. We only know it's there. Much more memorable than any jump scare to me. The lighting in the house is great, specifically during the dinnertime scene because it is only lit with lamps and no florescent overhead lights. It looks authentic as the lighting is plentiful but very dim and not detailed.
Toni Collette is magnificient throughout. You see true devastation and sadness from her when Charlie dies. The anger and guilt she feels at the dinner table is genuine. Later when waking up from nightmares and she has looks stick with you. By the end she is genuinely scary. There is a fantastic face switch she has toward the end where suddenly her expression changes which is great acting but also it lets you know that quickly what has happened to her.
Spoiler Section
The second half of the film focuses more on the horror aspects. Peter starts seeing these blue waves everywhere he goes. He sees his reflection stare back at him at one point. Annie goes to Joan's house and in one of the few only for the audience reveals we see candles at her table. That might imply the seance was more than just a seance. Everything in this movie that you see or hear pays off. Whether it be Steve and Annie talking about Charlie's peanut allergies or the sigil on the telephone pole they hit later. Annie recognizes the look of the rug near Joan's door. She goes through her mother's possessions and sees Joan and Ellen in one picture. Finally a reveal as in one of the witchcraft books King Paimon is highlighted. King Paimon is a demon who needs a male host and whoever gets him that host gets riches. At lunch Peter sees Joan across the schoolyard on the road and she keeps saying to give in and let King Paimon in. In class Peter has a moment where he bashes his head against his desk. Steve, who has been increasingly suspicious of Annie, goes to get Peter.
Annie tries to burn Charlie's sketchbook which she used for the seance. The book will not burn and she tries to convince Steve to try. Steve refuses and when Annie tosses the book in the fire Steve also gets burned to death. There could have been some protection placed on that book. Annie looks shocked at first but that look quickly turns into stone, we know she has been possessed. Peter then wakes up and the sequence I talked about earlier where he wanders through the house and we see Annie behind him happens. Annie chases Peter up to the attic where he hides and she levitates in. She strangles herself with a piano wire, a fantastically gory moment. I do like another camera moment here where the camera focuses on her up above and we see the cult members at ground level when he looks back. Annie's headless body goes back to the treehouse. Peter goes there and sees the cult members as well as his mother and grandmother's headless bodies. Joan appears and calls Peter Charlie and says he needs to accept King Paimon's possession of his body. Joan places the crown on his head and says he now leads the coven as the cult members worship him.
As I was writing this I noticed more moments in the plot that hint at things. The amount of people at Ellen's funeral, how much Ellen wanted to raise Charlie. Who knows what Ellen was feeding her. Judging from Charlie's behavior and drawings it seems as though she was possessed but King Paimon needs a permanent male host. It would seem as Ellen set this whole thing up in some way. Maybe the circumstances changed in some ways but she might have always thought of the possibility. Annie talks about the pressure she put on her to have children. Since Annie's brother was dead she had no other male host. Steve told Annie to cut off her connection with Ellen once Peter was born but sometimes another child can complicate that if they have to spend time raising Peter with a new kid. I'm just so glad this is folk horror type movie with real witches you can see and some really scary moments toward the end. The payoff is real. I wished that the beginning could have been sped up a bit. The funeral almost didn't need to be there. In comparison, a movie like the Wailing is a similar movie with payoff that is actually longer. More reveals and horror happen along that movie though to distract me from the slow burn. This keeps you on the edge until that last 30 minutes or so when it finally rewards you. You could've had Annie going to the support group and that would have been enough exposition. I will never think of a clicking tongue the same way. That sound is so unsettling throughout this movie.
Rating: 9/10 Possibility to go up if I find the pacing better on second watch
Trivia: Ari Aster requested that Milly Shapiro and Alex Wolff go out to eat in character a few times. Sometimes they would sit for hours with him talking and her never saying a word.
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