There’s a mystery at the heart of The Inheritance, the new thriller from director Alejandro Brugués. Or at least that what the screenplay by Joe Russo & Chris Lamont seems to believe.
When the film opens, the estranged adult children of billionaire Charles Abernathy (Bob Gunton) have assembled at the isolated family estate for the first time in two years. There’s severe, business-minded twins Madeline (Rachel Nichols) and C.J. (David Walton) who manage day-to-day operations for the family business, as well as influencer Kami (Peyton List), who hocks her fashion line to followers on social media.
It’s clear that the audience’s sympathies are meant to lie with youngest son Drew (Austin Stowell) and his wife Hannah (Briana Middleton). Not only do they work in philanthropy, but as the sole person of color, Hannah is immediately coded as the outsider, even before Madeline, C.J. and Charles remind us that the invitation specified “family members” only. Ouch.
The Inheritance is trafficking in the same uncomfortable class politics as Ready or Not or Slasher: Flesh & Blood: rich people doing terrible things with a sane, “normal” outsider caught in their midst. Russo and Lamont’s script isn’t breaking new boundaries with its class critique, though the writers’ effort at making Madeline, C.J. and even Kami into multi-faceted characters is admirable (albeit only partially successful).
The impromptu 75th birthday for Charles kicks off when his assistant Miles (Reese Alexander) locks the house until dawn (shades of Abigail) and the old man declares that he’ll be dead – murdered – by midnight. The reason the family is there is to protect him at all costs: if they wish to keep their inheritance, they must keep him alive. If they fail and he dies, all of the money will go to charity and they’ll be left with nothing.
In true horror fashion, Charles’ ominous declaration is initially treated as a joke…until the first body drops. This is where the gap between what the characters suspect and what the audience knows begins to widen: by virtue of witnessing the attack, we know that the threat is supernatural and that there’s more to Charles’ story than he is telling.
Alas the truth is disappointingly obvious (and not only because the answer is clearly laid out in the film’s opening credits). This makes Charles’ tendency to dodge simple answers in favor of vague responses all the more grating in the first two acts. And while there are additional revelations late in the film, by turning Charles himself into a mystery, he never truly becomes a proper character; Gunton is more or less relegated to playing a plot device.
Thankfully the casting helps overcome some of the plot inadequacies. Gunton carries the same mysterious, world-weary gravitas he brought to Dead Silence, while genre vet Nichols finds a shred of humanity beneath Madeline’s cold veneer. Walton is cast against type as a ruthless corporate stooge and he and Nichols have good chemistry.
Surprisingly, the stand-out is List, who not only gets all of the best one-liners in the film, but also avoids making Kami a vapid cliché. Considering the toxicity of her elder siblings, Kami’s penchant for escaping to the pool with no less than three bottles of wine feels eminently relatable. Plus, she gets the stand-out set piece of the film: an above-ground attack that is filmed entirely from under the water.
That leaves Stowell and Middleton to carry the bulk of the film and, as the de facto “good protagonists” in a nest of vipers, they’re fine. By sheer virtue of their roles, Drew and Hannah are inherently less exciting and fun, although they, too, have a few stand-out set pieces, including a sequence set in an Antiquities room filled with threatening statues.
In truth, the action is where The Inheritance excels. The film was originally commissioned as a Netflix original, so the Vancouver-shot production looks good. The mansion has plenty of character, especially the aforementioned Antiquities room and, later, a red-lit vault where individuals are imprisoned when the siblings start to turn on each other.
Brugués is clearly confident in staging action, and the film’s energy perks up whenever there’s an attack sequence. The creature design shifts throughout the course of the film: initially the spectral threat is ghostly, so it is caught lurking in backgrounds or just off-screen. Later it possesses the bodies of its victims, which allows for some decent make-up, although one sequence involving a character crawling out a portrait draws immediate comparisons to Ringu/The Ring. The actual creature is revealed in the climax, but the pros of casting a real life actor (Keith Arbuthnot) in make-up prosthetics are outweighed by the cons of the unconvincing CGI.
Overall The Inheritance has a pervasive “half-way there” vibe throughout. For every element that works, there’s another that doesn’t and the film ultimately plays like a paint by numbers pastiche of other (often better) horror films. Clocking in at a brief 84-minutes helps, as do the actors and several entertaining set pieces, but The Inheritance doesn’t feel substantive enough to heartily recommend.
For curious horror fans, it’s worth a look, but The Inheritance is not essential viewing.
The Inheritance releases on VOD outlets Friday, July 12.