Hereditary is a 2018 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Ari Aster, in his feature film directorial debut. It stars Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro and Gabriel Byrne as a family haunted by a mysterious presence after the death of their secretive grandmother.
conventionally good so much as unconventionally horrible. That’s the category into which I’d put Ari Aster’s debut, Hereditary, which is disjointed, lugubrious, and often draggy. But there’s no denying, much less shaking off, its power. It’s brilliantly horrible — cruel to the point of invasiveness. When you pare away its demonic accoutrements, you’re left with the most intractably nightmarish arena of all: hearth and home.
The film’s greatest strength is also what makes it so difficult to watch: Toni Collette in a performance so raw it’s as if she’s being flayed before your eyes. She plays a mother, Annie Graham — which as far as I can tell is not an anagram but perhaps an indication that the character lives by the rearrangement of essential elements. Having barely survived a traumatic childhood (psychotically depressed father, schizoid brother, witchily secretive mother), Annie is an artist who specializes in miniature houses full of miniature people who look just like her. Maybe it’s her way of pretending she can control her own environment. Ha to that!
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