THE INHERITANCE (2024)

Studio:   Vertical
Director: Alejandro Brugues
Writer:   Chris LaMont, Joseph Russo
Producer: Paul Schiff
Stars:    Bob Gunton, Peyton List, Brianna Middleton, Rachel Nichols, Austin Stowell, David Walton

Review Score:

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Summary:

To claim their inheritance, a billionaire's estranged children are tasked with protecting their father from a mysterious murder attempt before midnight on his 75th birthday.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

On the eve of his 75th birthday, billionaire businessman Charles Abernathy invites his compassionate son Drew, his cutthroat son C.J., C.J.'s shrewd twin sister Madeline, and their younger sister Kami, a social media celebrity, to his mansion to be together for the first time in two years. Despite a specific instruction that the event was intended for blood relatives only, Drew brings his wife Hannah.

Charles cryptically informs everyone that there is a price on his head that will be collected at midnight, and only his flesh and blood can save him. The children will be locked inside the mansion without any outside communication for the night. If Charles dies, no one will receive their inheritance. When Drew and Hannah later ask who is coming to kill him, Charles merely says he made a business deal that cost someone their life.

Since she wasn't supposed to be there, Charles gives Hannah an option to leave, which she declines. With all other security and staff members already sent home, faithful butler Miles Hartmen departs. Charles retires to his private library to wait out the evening while his children begin experiencing minor instances of paranormal activity throughout the mansion.

An unseen presence violently kills Kami while she is alone in the indoor swimming pool room. After her body is discovered, the other Abernathy children wonder if a killer is locked inside the estate with them. Charles only responds that his family is cursed because of him, and the spirit that wants him dead will become more aggressive as it gets closer to midnight. Impressed with her loyalty in deciding to stay, Charles gives Kami's inheritance to Hannah.

C.J. and Madeline, who were already planning to use their father's apparent eccentricity to hostilely take over his company, become suspicious that Drew and Hannah could be the killers. The twins jealously plot to murder Drew and Hannah so they can claim the inheritance for themselves.

After discovering Kami's body mysteriously went missing, Hannah tells Drew she wants to leave. Drew tries to escort Hannah out of the mansion through a passageway in an art storage room, but something supernatural frightens Hannah as the statues in the room inexplicably turn to face toward her and Drew.

Fleeing from strange noises, Hannah and Drew follow the sound of their family's signature knock to a vault where C.J. and Madeline lock them inside. While Hannah and Drew worry about decreasing oxygen levels slowly suffocating them, the twins confront a shadowy entity. An invisible presence drags Madeline into a room where Kami's ghoul bursts out of a portrait to attack Madeline. C.J. shoots at the ghoul, but Kami's image dissipates, revealing C.J. actually shot and killed Madeline.

Distraught over his twin sister's death, C.J. releases Hannah and Drew from the vault and tells them to demand Charles reveal what he did that caused their sisters to die. Hannah and Drew go on to discover a secret room where they find a grimoire and other occult items indicating Charles made a deal with a demon.

Kami's ghoul frightens C.J. into falling over a banister. Madeline's ghoul then drains the life out of C.J.

Fleeing from a shadowy figure, Hannah and Drew seek safety in Charles's study. Charles finally explains that after his father ruined their family's name and fortune, Charles rebuilt the Abernathy empire by making a pact with the demon Mammon that would be paid by giving up his soul on his 75th birthday. Having second thoughts, Charles renegotiated the deal so he could keep his life in exchange for his bloodline dying instead. With that revelation, Charles suddenly shoots Drew in his head. Charles also shoots at Hannah, but she flees.

Charles's subsequent pursuit of Hannah ends when she recovers C.J.'s shotgun to shoot Charles to the floor. A grandfather clock then topples over to pin down Charles. Charles threatens that if he dies, Hannah will inherit nothing. Hannah reminds Charles she never wanted his money as she warns that Mammon is still coming for him. Confused, Charles points out his children are all dead, seemingly fulfilling his new contract by making him the last survivor of the Abernathy family. Hannah reveals she is pregnant with a granddaughter who is now the actual heir of the Abernathy bloodline.

Surrounded by shadowed ghouls of the four Abernathy children, Mammon comes and kills Charles at midnight. In the morning, Miles returns to find the shocking scene inside the mansion. Having survived the night, Hannah returns home in a limo.

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Review:

Although it's not an immediate red flag, a "Proceed with Caution" warning automatically appears whenever Netflix releases a new horror title. Exceptions exist, such as David Bruckner's "The Ritual" (review here) or any series from Mike Flanagan, but the prolific streamer isn't consistently associated with high-quality fright fare. Their reputation for assembly line "filler thrillers" more often makes them a landfill for generic entertainment rather than an oasis for genre entertainment.

Perhaps the only thing capable of eliciting a louder "uh oh" than the red N logo appearing at the start of a movie is discovering Netflix passed on a project already in their pipeline, which is what happened with "The Inheritance." No explanation was publicly given for their divorce, but it can't be seen as a good sign when a corporation that doesn't seem to value quality or originality as top concerns suddenly separates itself from something.

Previously titled "The Last Will and Testament of Charles Abernathy" before Netflix dumped it on a doorstep for eventual adoption by another distributor, "The Inheritance" opens on the eve of Charles Abernathy's 75th birthday. The billionaire businessman hasn't assembled his four estranged children, and one daughter-in-law, for a party. Instead, he has an unexpected announcement and an unusual request. At midnight, Charles is scheduled to lose his life according to the terms of a bizarre arrangement he once made. His flesh and blood can somehow save him, but if they fail to do so, Charles will not only die, his children will be unable to claim their shares of his fortune.

Throughout its first act, "The Inheritance" brings viewers up to speed on the family dynamics courtesy of dialogue singularly focused on coughing out background exposition. Of his siblings C.J. and Madeline, Drew Abernathy tells his wife Hannah, "I think they resent us for being there for my mom at the end when they couldn't be." Drew adds he has no regrets about "walking away from my family's soul-sucking career path to spend the rest of my life with the woman of my dreams." Meanwhile, when flighty socialite sister Kami mentions in a separate conversation how the other two didn't attend Drew and Hannah's wedding, Madeline defends herself and her twin brother C.J. by saying, "We were busy opening the London office, remember?"

It's wild how the Abernathy kids concern themselves with rehashing this shared past they're already well aware of, yet they don't discuss the present, much less the future. If my father told me about a mysterious murder about to take place right before locking me inside a mansion to wait out the night, cutting off all outside communication, then retreating to hide out alone in his private study, I might consider pressing him for a detail or two. Even after the first body drops, Charles simply says, "Our family is cursed and it's all because of me," and everyone remains content with cryptic claims that refuse to be more specific than "something" is coming to get him.

Now that you know everything necessary to have a complete understanding of the Abernathy family's cursory characterizations, care to place odds on who deserves to die or who will survive this predictable premise? Clearly callous Charles obviously has his head on the chopping block. Will the unscrupulous twins who are already alienated from the others and are also secretly scheming to take over their father's empire join him? What about Kami, the social media sensation who annoyingly livestreams on Instagram during the first moment we meet her? Should money be bet on Drew, the compassionate son whose philanthropic interests drove him away from dear old dad, or at least his wife Hannah, the heart-of-gold outsider who expresses no interest in inheriting any dirty Abernathy money?

"The Inheritance" regards the revelation that Charles made a deal with a demon like a breathtaking surprise, yet it's no more of a twist than the real reason why he summoned his family to be supernaturally slaughtered one by one. "Slaughtered" is more suggestive than it should be, considering untimely cuts and obscured camera angles keep the eeriest actions offscreen, possibly to preserve a PG-13 level of audience accessibility. There's scant substance to supposed scares anyway, with such moments relegated to mostly minor events like statues turning on their own or a shadowy shape appearing at the far end of a hallway.

With the creatives seemingly going through the motions to put out a routine production about a snobby family receiving a haunting comeuppance, "The Inheritance" ironically makes Netflix look better than anyone by virtue of them no longer being involved. It could be that the company finally turned a corner by being able to recognize one of those aforementioned "filler thrillers" before it crossed the finish line. It's not difficult to do when a script contains directions along the lame lines of "and then the lights flicker," but for now, I'll take it as an encouraging sign they might have better B-movies ahead.

Review Score: 35

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