Dir: Ari Aster
A highbrow haunted house movie. More homage to Rosemary’s Baby than Paranormal Activity, a genre aficionado’s horror film filled with slow-burning dread. It treads into familiar tropes while tweaking them to still feel fresh. Bound to divide audiences like Robert Egger’s The Witch, often appealing to a niche offshoot of horror fandom with use of symbolism, deliberate imagery, and sometimes labored pacing. Anguish, death, grief swells throughout, and is strengthened by one of the top performances of 2018 by Toni Collete. She brings tangible, deafening pain to scenes never once pulling emotional punches, merging the paranormal with genuine human grief. (8.5/10)
