7 Thursday, June 21, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS “Tag” Quality 16 Warner Bros. “Hereditary” State Theatre A24 FILM REVIEW Horror is a genre that often lends itself to formula — people just aren’t that hard to scare. The horror film typically oper- ates under an unspoken con- tract between the filmmakers and their audience: You may go see the most recent install- ment of the “Scream,” “Hallow- een” or “Saw” franchises and, for about an hour and a half, you’ll be treated to an adrena- line rush courtesy of a collection of tried and true horror tropes. The film will fall into a familiar rhythm, and the beats the story hits will serve to both unnerve the audience while maintaining a healthy degree of separation. And what does the filmmaker gain from this contract? They get to refine these types of films to a science and pump out yearly installments ad infinitum (2017’s “Jigsaw,” for example, marked the 8th installment in the block- buster “Saw” franchise). It’s by no means a slight against those films, as they occupy their own niche within the state of mod- ern cinema; these films are sure to entertain, shock and most importantly, scare. Ari Aster’s directorial debut “Hereditary” is not one of those films. It did not scare me — it shook me to my core. The film tells the story of the Graham family, whose lives are turned upside down when Ellen Gra- ham, the family’s cold, ritualistic matriarch, dies, leaving behind boxes filled with secrets that will haunt her grieving family. If this sounds vague, that’s because this film evades description. It knowingly takes the aforemen- tioned agreement between film- maker and audience and tears it to shreds, following no familiar rhythm and actively subverting classic horror tropes. The result is a visceral, disturbing film that will stay with audiences long after the credits roll. While the film provides gore and shocking images abound, Aster’s true strength lies in his ability to make familiar things seem unspeakably terrifying. Toni Collette (“Please Stand By”) delivers a truly earthshaking performance as Annie, Ellen’s grief-stricken daughter and a mother of two. In one particular- ly unsettling dinner table scene, Collette shows her acting chops as she jolts between overwhelm- ing grief and blinding, animal- istic rage. Her unhinged, manic face, outlined by the dim flicker of candlelight, is one of the film’s most unnerving images. The film is further bolstered from an impressive display of cinematic ingenuity from Aster, who proves himself as an impor- tant new name not just within the horror genre, but for film as a whole. In almost every regard, from soundtrack to cinematog- raphy, “Hereditary” manages to impress with its inventiveness. One of Aster’s greatest triumphs is how well he understands the power of the viewer’s imagina- tion, often demonstrating an uncanny ability to decide what to show the audience and what to keep hidden. While Aster does eventually show the audience many of these truly gruesome and disturbing images, he mas- terfully builds suspense leading up to it. For all its disturbing imagery and terror-inducing moments, perhaps the scariest part of the film is that at its core, the true “monster” of the film is some- thing decidedly real. Much like 2014’s “The Babadook,” which used the image of an eight-foot tall man-creature stalking a woman and her son as an analog for grief and despair, “Heredi- tary” makes similar symbolic overtures. Even when the film does stretch its legs and reach into more outlandish terri- tory, the center of what makes it so profoundly upsetting feels decidedly real, leaving the audi- ence with the creeping fear that maybe this could happen to them. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and maybe — no matter how much we may struggle — we can’t ever escape what we inherit. ‘Hereditary’ contemplates inherited trauma and pain FILM REVIEW A24 MAX MICHALSKY Daily Arts Writer JEREMIAH VANDERHELM Daily Arts Writer There’s not much to “Tag” that you won’t get out of most big- budget comedies. The cast is almost unanimously made up of names you’ll recognize from their previous work, and you’ll leave the theater feeling like at least one of your favorites was shafted for screen time. At least a full quarter of the jokes will feel like a bad improvisation that goes on way too long and mostly consists of two or more characters trying to talk nonsense over each other. There will be a Big Emotional Moment that comes out of nowhere about ten minutes from the end of the movie, when the writers realized they couldn’t just have the characters play tag the whole time. “Tag” ticks all these boxes and more, but when it dabbles in cliché, it does so with such gusto and such commitment to the insanity of its premise that it’s really hard not to like. Unlike similar comedies like “Daddy’s Home 2” or “The House,” there’s an understanding here that just putting funny people on camera together doesn’t naturally generate comedy. The cast of “Tag” is actually given ample opportunity to show off their well-established comic chops — Jake Johnson (TV’s “New Girl”) as a stoner, Jon Hamm (“Beirut”) as an uber-charismatic doofus, Ed Helms (“Father Figures”) as the biggest man-child in a group of man-children — and almost everyone gets a laugh. The stand-out doesn’t even wind up being one of the leads; it’s Isla Fisher (“Nocturnal Animals”) as Anna, the wife of Hoagie (Helms) who harbors an unhealthy obsession with the game. Fisher’s talents have been unused for too long, and her ability to shift between different personas at a moment’s notice is put to good use here. In one scene she’s shocked that she forgot to show off vacation photos of her kids to a visiting reporter. Soon after, she tries to waterboard Thomas Middleditch (TV’s “Silicon Valley”) so her husband can tag Jeremy Renner (“Wind River”). It’s ridiculous and absolutely hilarious. Other members of the cast don’t acquit themselves as well, usually due to a lack of screen time as opposed to any fault of their own. Rashida Jones (TV’s “Parks and Recreation”) has proven herself a terrific straight man in the past but isn’t given the chance to do anything in “Tag” but participate in a tired love triangle with Johnson and Hamm. And Annabelle Wallis (“The Mummy”) is mostly an audience surrogate who sticks to the background, though it would have been nice to see her get in on the action a bit more. Then there’s Renner as Jerry: the crux on which the whole movie turns and who ultimately feels like he’s in a different movie. Since most of the movie consists of him running away from the rest of the cast, he’s the odd man out, the one who never really feels like “part of the group.” This is almost certainly part of the point, that Jerry has grown farther from his friends mentally as he has physically in the game, but where we understand the relationships between the other characters due to their shared screen time, we never get the same insight into Renner, so the Big Emotional Moment that ensues with his character late in the movie falls comparatively flat. The upside to this is that at no point does “Tag” treat Renner’s character like he is bound by the laws of physics and logic, which allows for unexpected, overblown action in a movie based on a children’s game. It’s drenched in slow motion and accompanied by Renner’s smirking voice over. In a time when most comedies don’t allow themselves to lean into their ludicrous premise, watching “Tag” step up and own its insanity is pretty refreshing. ‘Tag’ disappoints WARNER BROS.