Even though the Halloween season is coming to a close, you can still consume anything and everything pumpkin flavored, get some fall candles, and watch all the scary movies. If you want your scary movie consumption to truly be valid this season, you need to add the only horror movie that exists to your list: Ari Aster’s Hereditary.
Hereditary marked Aster’s feature directorial debut and quickly became one of A24’s highest-grossing films worldwide. The psychological thriller is visually stunning and utterly horrifying. I can’t get too deep into the plot without spoiling the movie, so here’s a brief synopsis via A24: “When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry, trying to outrun the sinister fate they have inherited.” The movie deals with a lot of death, grief, demons, and all of the best parts of inherited family trauma! Cute! Hereditary is certainly not a feel-good movie, but I think you know what you’re getting into when you cozy up with a horror flick.
If body horror isn’t your jam, Hereditary might not be the movie for you. Ari Aster is big on displaying mutilated bodies. If you happened to see his most recent film, Midsommar (also great and I highly recommend), you may have picked up on this. Showing grotesque bodies sounds awful on paper, and as terrible as it sounds, there’s something about the way that Aster creates these images that makes it nearly impossible to look away.
The film stars Toni Collette (horror and all-around acting legend), Alex Wolff (yes, that kid from The Naked Brothers Band and yeah, he’s still super cute), and Millie Shapiro. Collette plays Annie Graham, the mother of Wolff and Shapiro’s characters. Annie deals with the most chaos and trauma in the film, and Collette gives a phenomenal performance. Wolff is also amazing in the film as he navigates through high school on top of struggling with horrible family issues. Hereditary contains some of the strongest performances I’ve seen in horror in years, and I’m still a little bitter the film didn’t get more recognition.
I’m not a big movie person at all, but Hereditary is something I will go out of my way to watch almost any time of the year. Ari Aster’s contributions to horror might very well change the industry forever. His style is so unique and his stories are frightening beyond belief. There’s so much depth to the plot that it’s nearly impossible to give a good summary without giving things away, which is even more reason to go watch it! Hereditary is an amazing movie and everyone should check it out at some point.