Hereditary
I remember seeing Hereditary over the summer and sleeping with my television on for three nights straight. Last year’s It left me freaked out, but Ari Aster’s Hereditary left me feeling something different. It’s not just that the various images it presents are disturbing, but it gets at the black core of a family undergoing trauma.
The film follows a seemingly average family in the wake of two dueling traumas. Along the way, family matriarch Annie (Toni Collette) is having trouble dealing with her grief.
There are moments in Hereditary that are so relatable, but they relate to some of the worst family moments of your life. Watching Collette and Alex Wolff, who plays her son Peter, sit at a dinner table and argue will connect with you far more than the overtly frightening things like fast running and grinning old people. Aster crafts an overall pervasive fear: fear of dying, fear of giving in to sadness, fear of the people we love the most.
Collette’s performance is downright intense, and though it probably won’t be recognized come awards time — horror still remains a weirdly taboo genre to reward — it’s amazing. The strength Collette has to bring to run through the emotions she does looks exhausting. Watch this with the lights on.