10 / 10
Official trailer
Hereditary is Ari Aster’s 2018 American indie horror and the director’s debut feature. The film depicts the Graham family in the wake of the grandmother’s death and the accumulating supernatural and psychological consequences that follow. Toni Collette plays Annie, the mother. Gabriel Byrne plays Steve, the father. Alex Wolff plays Peter, the teenage son. Milly Shapiro plays Charlie, the young daughter. Aster wrote the screenplay. A24 produced the film, and it was released in June 2018 after serious Sundance Film Festival attention.
Of all the horror films from the last decade, this is the one that rattles me most. The supernatural material is frightening enough, but what disturbs me is watching a family grieve badly, say unforgivable things to each other and keep living in the same house. Toni Collette’s performance alone would justify the 10, and Aster gives her a film worthy of it.
The film works as horror and as study in the conditions of family grief under supernatural pressure.
The work refuses the genre conventions that mainstream horror cinema typically deploys. The narrative organizes around the family’s accumulating breakdown instead of around dramatic supernatural confrontations. The structural design uses sustained atmospheric commitment, devastating dramatic incidents, and gradual supernatural escalation to develop horror that conventional approaches can’t match. The work continues the international horror revival that earlier productions including The Witch had helped establish.
The Collette Performance
Toni Collette’s performance as Annie is among the great central horror performances in contemporary cinema. The character works as both grieving mother and as participant in supernatural events that the family doesn’t initially recognize. The actress establishes both tones through accumulated particular behavior. The famous dinner table confrontation sequence depicts Annie’s distinct psychological breakdown that’s acquired independent cultural standing through critical reference.
The dinner table scene is the reason I’d hand Collette every award going. She lets Annie say something that ugly across a table and still makes me understand exactly where it came from. That scene frightens me more than anything supernatural in the film.
The performance refuses the conventional horror heroine tone. Annie isn’t depicted as innocent victim. The character carries distinct psychological history including family dysfunction, professional commitment to miniature art that works as both dramatic content and as broader argumentative material about control, and particular responses to her mother’s death that work at tones exceeding conventional grief. The complexity produces character that works at multiple simultaneous tones instead of at single dramatic position. Horror leads can carry serious psychological complexity.
For Writers
Horror protagonists can carry serious psychological complexity instead of operating as innocent victims. Hereditary’s Annie carries distinct psychological history that the supernatural elements amplify instead of create. This applies to fiction. Consider whether your horror protagonists work at simple victim tone or sustain psychological complexity. Complex protagonists produce stronger work but require character preparation that simple victims don’t demand.
The First-Act Devastating Incident
Serious dramatic weight gathers around a devastating incident that occurs approximately forty minutes into the runtime. The incident transforms the family situation in ways that later sequences develop. The audience experiences the incident with the same shock that the depicted family experiences. The work refuses the conventional horror cinema approach that distributes shocking content across the runtime in measured dramatic peaks.
That incident knocked the wind out of me. I think it’s the boldest structural choice in modern horror, and Aster has the nerve to let everything after it live in that damage. Every scene that follows plays differently because I can’t stop thinking about it.
The structural design uses the first-act devastating incident as foundation for the wider work. All later sequences work against the established trauma that the incident produced. The audience can’t return to the pre-incident dramatic situation. The family can’t recover the relationships the incident damaged. The work argues that particular trauma produces permanent transformation instead of temporary disruption. Concentrated devastating incidents can carry argumentative weight that distributed dramatic peaks can’t match.
For Writers
Concentrated devastating incidents can carry argumentative weight that distributed dramatic peaks can’t match. Hereditary uses the first-act devastating incident as structural foundation for the wider work. This applies to fiction. Consider whether your dramatic content distributes weight evenly or concentrates it at particular points. Concentrated incidents produce permanent transformation that distributed treatment can’t replicate. The investment in single concentrated incidents is serious but produces work that distributed approaches can’t match.
The Family Dynamic Foundation
Before any horror content arrives, the film establishes the Graham family dynamics with careful preparation. The opening sequences develop particular family relationships, individual psychological positions, and accumulated family history that the later horror content amplifies instead of creates. The structural design depends on this family dynamic foundation. The horror elements work through the established dynamics instead of against them.
The family dynamic foundation also produces particular argumentative content. The work argues that family dysfunction produces conditions that supernatural threats exploit instead of creating those threats from external sources. The depicted supernatural content emerges from family-particular history including the grandmother’s particular religious commitments. Horror cinema can develop arguments about family dynamics that work alongside the supernatural content.
This is what I admire most about Aster’s script. He spends real time making the Grahams a believable family before anything supernatural happens, so the horror lands on people I already know. Too many horror films rush that part, and I think it’s why so few of them stay with me.
For Writers
Horror content can develop arguments about family dynamics that work alongside the supernatural elements. Hereditary uses Graham family dysfunction to argue about how families produce conditions that external threats exploit. This applies to fiction. Consider whether your horror content develops through established family or character dynamics or works against generic protagonist templates. Established dynamics allow arguments that generic templates can’t support.
Craft Note
Aster’s structural decision to develop serious family dynamic foundation before deploying horror content required careful preparation in screenplay development. The opening sequences needed to establish authentic family dynamics that the later horror content could work against. The casting required performers capable of developing the depicted family relationships with sustained authenticity. The completed film works because the preparation supported both the family content and the horror content instead of treating them as separable elements. The lesson applies to creative work broadly.
Horror or genre content benefits from careful preparation in the non-genre content that supports the genre material. The investment in non-genre preparation produces genre work that works beyond pure genre engagement.
Is Hereditary as good as people say?
Hereditary gets a 10 from me without hesitation. Collette gives a lead horror performance I’d put against anything in the genre, the first-act incident is the most shocking structural move I can name, and Aster builds the film on a family so real that the supernatural material feels like it was always waiting for them. If you care about modern American horror, or about Aster’s work, start here.
