Hey Occulties,
Many of you have asked me my opinion on this movie, much because Paimon is a character and you know how much I love Paimon. My caveat here, as it always is, is that movies do not portray magic, or spirits, or the occult very well...sometimes Hollywood does such a completely horrid job of even coming close to anything accurate, that it's beyond laughable that a large set of people will take this as being a valid account, because it's so far off reality it is like saying an elephant might fly away on it's giant secret wings to escape the zoo, and people believing it was possible (which is true also for doctor shows, lawyer shows, most historical accounts of anything...and well, Hollywood creates a fantasy and is very unreal about most things, so presumably Hollywood does an inaccurate job of portraying most anything,)
So, I did watch this film with the idea of being ENTERTAINED in mind, and not believing I would find anything nearing reality or accuracy when it came to Paimon or working with spirits, or with the occult.
SPOILERS AHEAD (because people for some reason need a warning even if I say I'm reviewing something.)
Basically the plot of the movie is that the protagonist (I think Toni Collette is the protagonist,) has recently had her mother (who is spoken of as a strange person, somewhat off putting,) pass away and is then shortly thereafter further sent into grief by the loss of her youngest child...a strange looking, irritating little girl who I was not sorry to see have her time on the screen cut short. I think that kid's face was one of the scariest things in the movie, honestly. :P Anyhow, as the storyline develops, we find out that the protagonist's mother was into spellcraft and she specifically wore all sorts of Paimon-seal jewelry (which occult nerds probably caught early on, though the seal wasn't entirely right,) and that she promised something to Paimon which is probably the reason her daughter was killed (as it was such an odd freak event, it must be,) but then we are also told that the Toni Collette character has a strong history of mental illness in her family and so I think we are supposed to wonder if everyone is just losing their mind. But no, it definitely comes out that what the grandmother promised was a male body for Paimon, and that male body just happens to be Toni Collette's son. Any attempt to fight back is met with death and disaster, and when Gabriel Byrne (who was wasted in this role...there are entire long shots of just looking at his sad old man face, and this is an actor who can do a lot more depth than "watch Gabriel Byrne look sad,") finally tries to intercede after waiting the entire movie, more or less, to do jack or shit, he is killed by Paimon when Toni Collette throws a sketchbook belonging to her daughter (who was apparently possessed by Paimon?) into a fire place and he just goes up in flame... At this point, I had really checked out of the movie, because as you can tell it kind of sucked. The end was relatively predictable with Toni Collette becoming possessed, sawing her head off in front of her son, and then having her headless body (and that of her mother,) kneeling at this gold image which...I thought it looked like a second grader's art project, but apparently that was an idol of Paimon they were bowing to. Then the son becomes Paimon...or realizes he is Paimon now.
If that sounded garbled and confusing, welcome to Hereditary. It isn't scary. It's a bit gross in a few places, but I would not say it is scary. It's attempt to "creep" and build suspense and tension fall flat. I would give it 2.5 stars out of 5, as far as entertainment value. I found it dull and tedious at times (and I LOVED The Witch, which I think they were trying to recapture a similar ambiance,) and I did not find any of the characters particularly likable or relatable, which made everyone's subsequent death (more or less,) meaningless to the viewer.
As far as realism on the spiritual material... They did cuff a lot of stuff from the Lesser Key of Solomon, albeit added to this to make it sound better. I thought, as far as Hollywood, that was a better attempt at realism than what is normally seen. That Paimon wants to steal your children's bodies for herself (and I know people who see her as her, and also her as him,) is ludicrous. I mean, it's bad enough that this strange cult apparently worships an image they made out of Quaker Oat cans and gold spray paint (and maybe some paper mache and papertowel tubes,) because apparently, despite there being at least a dozen of these followers (which means at least one of them should be able to do art better than someone in the first or second grade,) not a single one is capable of making an idol that doesn't involve a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a recycling bin to create... But that aside, weird cults and child theft seems more like something a lamia would be a part of, as it certainly had no relation to the demon King Paimon....not in any way. While I understand that it makes it feel more real to use a being who's name is recorded, it would actually have been more "realistic" to create a name for a lamia rather than substitute any old demonic name. Compare this with saying our current president is Thomas Jefferson because he is a US president, so just any name of any president works, right?
Anyhow, with this garbled mess of a review, the movie sucked, and the entity was definitely not Paimon in anything other than being called that name. The characters (even people with talent,) were unlikeable, and the movie, while it started off alright, quickly became boring. The ending was stupid. 2-2.5 stars. You might watch it once.
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