WARNING: "Hermehditary" spoilers below
Basically, I didn't think it was a straight-up BAD movie or anything, just an extremely disappointing one in comparison to my expectations. There were good aspects, of course; the creepy cinematography and lovingly detailed production design were all quite good on their own, it's just in the overall tone and execution that the film struggled, as it from a slightly problematic but still relatively promising first half, to an endless parade of tiresome Horror cliches (demonic cults, ghostly possessions, gratuitous nightmare fake-outs, etc.), mostly executed in as tediously an over-the-top manner as possible, one-right-after-another with almost no sense of pacing or restraint, as if Ari Aster hoped that all the vaguely demon-themed crap he was throwing at the wall and us would somehow end up coalescing into a cohesive film (they didn't), and it ended up feeling like a series of arbitrary Horror setpieces strung along with the connective tissue between them being a complete afterthought, which Aster basically did admit was the case: https://film.avclub.com/director-ari-aster-tells-you-everything-we-cant-about-h-1826651443 The execution of a lot of it just felt downright sloppy to me, with supernatural "rules" that changed at random depending on the screenwriter's mood, contradictory/inconsistent characterizations, lots of moments that made little sense, an awkward mishmashing of Supernatural Horror and family Drama, and a blatant misuse of a great actress in Toni Collete's performance, who was forced to go so over the top so much of the time with her Jim Carrey-level facial contortions, that not even she could keep them from becoming unintentionally comedic in the end. So, no offence, but the scariest thing about it for me is the fact that anyone thinks it's a good movie, let alone a great one.
Basically, I didn't think it was a straight-up BAD movie or anything, just an extremely disappointing one in comparison to my expectations. There were good aspects, of course; the creepy cinematography and lovingly detailed production design were all quite good on their own, it's just in the overall tone and execution that the film struggled, as it from a slightly problematic but still relatively promising first half, to an endless parade of tiresome Horror cliches (demonic cults, ghostly possessions, gratuitous nightmare fake-outs, etc.), mostly executed in as tediously an over-the-top manner as possible, one-right-after-another with almost no sense of pacing or restraint, as if Ari Aster hoped that all the vaguely demon-themed crap he was throwing at the wall and us would somehow end up coalescing into a cohesive film (they didn't), and it ended up feeling like a series of arbitrary Horror setpieces strung along with the connective tissue between them being a complete afterthought, which Aster basically did admit was the case: https://film.avclub.com/director-ari-aster-tells-you-everything-we-cant-about-h-1826651443 The execution of a lot of it just felt downright sloppy to me, with supernatural "rules" that changed at random depending on the screenwriter's mood, contradictory/inconsistent characterizations, lots of moments that made little sense, an awkward mishmashing of Supernatural Horror and family Drama, and a blatant misuse of a great actress in Toni Collete's performance, who was forced to go so over the top so much of the time with her Jim Carrey-level facial contortions, that not even she could keep them from becoming unintentionally comedic in the end. So, no offence, but the scariest thing about it for me is the fact that anyone thinks it's a good movie, let alone a great one.