Hereditary: And You Think Your Family’s Messed Up

It feels like every year for the past five years, we’ve been presented with a horror movie that falls under the vague title of “arthouse horror”, something in the vein of The Shining, The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby where the scares come from atmosphere and tension and the monster is usually a metaphor for some kind of trauma. And every time these movies pop up, they get touted by fans and critics as the next big thing in the genre. First there was The Babadook, then there was It Follows, then The Witch, Get Out, and arguably Mother!, however divisive that last one may be. The latest movie in this cycle of hype is Hereditary, which comes to us from A24, a studio that’s dabbled in this genre before with Under The Skin, It Comes At Night and The Witch, two of which were really just family dramas with supernatural elements, so I expected this to more or less be cut from the same cloth. So how does it fare against those?

Let me put it this way: After seeing Hereditary, I think I finally understand how all those people in the 70’s felt when The Exorcist first premiered. This is the most frightening horror movie I’ve seen since Martyrs, and it’s almost as devastating.

Our story follows the Graham family: Annie (Toni Collette), a work from home artist who makes elaborate lifelike dioramas of her home life, her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), son Peter (Alex Wolff) and daughter Charlie (Millie Shapiro). The film begins after the death of Annie’s mother, who we eventually learn was psychologically abusive to her and had an uncomfortably manipulative influence on her grandkids. Her passing has left a tangible storm cloud over the family, each coping in their own way. These feelings of grief, dread and anguish are amplified when they’re hit with another unexpected tragedy, and slowly but surely they discover that she had a secret life of her own and that their entire lives may have just been a ploy for some nefarious purposes.

Part of the genius of Hereditary is that it fully expects the audience to be somewhat familiar with 60 years’ worth of horror movie tropes and then weaponizing those expectations against us. You think you know where things are going since you’ve seen creepy children, Satanic cults, possessions and haunted houses in movies before, but right when it seems like the movie’s going on a straight path, it pulls the steering wheel and sends you barreling into a ravine. The best horror movies invite you in, lay out a nice meal for you, play on your familiarity before sliding a steak knife between your ribs when you least expect it, only this time, it’ll have you laughing maniacally when it’s time to twist the blade. It wears its influences on its sleeve, bearing hints of the aforementioned Exorcist, The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby as well as hints of Don’t Look Now, Halloween and Martyrs, but manages to take elements from all those films and make them its own.

That’s not to say it’s all just constant blindsiding. As I’ve said before, execution is everything. Director Ari Aster has honed his craft with a series of shocking, unsettling short films, and here his craftsmanship is on full display. The opening shot in particular sets the tone: a lingering zoom-out from the treehouse in the backyard through the window of Annie’s workshop, panning across to present the array of finished and unfinished miniatures, zooming in closer and closer one of the open dioramas, the room blending seamlessly into real life. Those miniatures are omnipresent, ingeniously used to provide backstory without the need for exposition dumps. Charley is, in her own twisted way, an artist just like her mom, but her dolls are made from, let’s say… less conventional materials.

The best horror movies are always about something much deeper than just a monster creeping in the dark, and in this case, Hereditary is all about the impact of family dysfunction that lingers even when the main tormentors aren’t there. Before any supernatural elements are introduced, we’re smothered in a blanket of dread and anxiety from witnessing the family’s turmoil unravel. Just when the family is still reeling from grandma’s death, they’re hit with another inconceivable tragedy: a freak accident so upsetting in its real-world plausibility. And it’s all downhill from there. Buried feelings are venomously spewed across the dinner table. A visit to a support group leads to the reveal of a past trapped in a vicious cycle of loss and abuse. Dad tries thanklessly to keep the peace as mother and son go to war with each other.

A lot of credit has to go to Toni Collette, who’s tasked with most of the emotional heavy lifting, giving harrowing monologues in a stressful emotional state, conveying true horror at the atrocities that transpire, and switching on a dime with disturbing finesse. It’s an especially impressive feat considering her character gradually becomes both less sympathetic and more understandable. Alex Wolff also does wonders when he’s asked to hit some unthinkable notes and becomes a catalyst in one of the movie’s most devastating scene. Gabriel Byrne also does well as the straight man burdened with keeping his disintegrating family together, and Milly Shapiro finds a fresh approach to the tired cliché of the creepy child who people probably should’ve been keeping an eye on.

Before we wrap this up, I want to talk a little bit about how I score movies. I like to think of myself as easy to please but hard to impress. It’s all subjective, but it doesn’t take much for me to give a movie a 7 or an 8, but I only give a 10 to what I consider modern masterpieces. My reviews and scores are also based on how I felt about it in the moment. There’s only one movie I gave a 10 since starting this blog, and a few I would give a 10 in retrospect. I bring this up because when I give something a 10, it’s not something I take lightly. And Hereditary, for all the aforementioned reason, is truly deserving of that score.

10/10