Hereditary (2018)

Of the many incredible horror debuts in the 2010s, Ari Aster stands above the rest, with a debut that transcended genre and made him an instant legend.

Directed by: Ari Aster

Cinematography by: Pawel Pogorzelski

Country: United States

Genre: Horror/Drama/Thriller/Mystery

Between the commercial triumph of Blumhouse Productions, the explosion of gifted independent-arthouse filmmakers, and streaming services bringing more films into audience’s homes, the horror genre saw an exhilarating resurgence in the previous decade, powered by some of the most remarkable debuts the genre has ever witnessed. Chief among them is Ari Aster’s horrifying psychological nightmare: Hereditary.

There’s a past IG Story I made saved to my profile called “Classrooms” about horror filmmakers using classrooms as a narrative device to communicate something important with the audience, whether it’s using a lecture to inform the audience of the coming plot like in Verónica (2017); using a poetry reading to set up themes and reinforce a haunting and lyrical atmosphere like in It Follows (2014); or using a discussion on Greek mythology as metatextual foreshadowing like in Hereditary. Peter, our main character in the Hereditary scene, is too busy ogling the girl in front of him and texting his buddy to pay attention to and participate in the discussion going on around him. Like a cruel joke though, the conversation between the teacher and students may as well be directly about Peter, and the bloodcurdling journey he and his family will be taking over the course of the film.

Here’s the dialogue from their discussion.
“If we go by the rule that the hero is undone by his fatal flaw, what is Heracles flaw?”
“Arrogance”
“Ok, why?”
“Because he literally refuses to look at all the signs that are being literally handed to him the entire play.”
“Okay, interesting, so he thinks he has control. But let’s all remember, Sophocles wrote the oracle so that it was unconditional, meaning Heracles never had any choice, right? So does that make it more tragic or less tragic that if he has a choice?”
[non-essential dialogue goes on here]
“I think it’s more tragic because if it’s all just inevitable then that means that the characters have no hope. They never had hope because they’re all just like hopeless… they’re all like pawns in this horrible hopeless machine.”

This dialogue is directly transferable onto the overarching story of Hereditary, and it informs the viewer that the fates of these characters have been sealed from the start. The choices that they make cannot even be right or wrong because every action has been pre-determined by greater, and unfortunately in this case malevolent, powers. The protagonists are merely pieces in the dark games of unspeakable gods (and if we want to get even more meta, the scene is also Aster’s playful nod to himself: the highest of all the gods and true creator of the characters’ miseries [but let’s not get too Community with this]).
The idea that the characters are unknowing playthings of otherworldly forces is paralleled brilliantly by the profession of the lead character Annie – the mother of the family we follow. Annie (played by Toni Collette who put in the performance of a lifetime) works as an artist designing miniatures and small-scale replicas for an art gallery.

And whether we realize it or not, Aster entwines Annie’s work with the fatalistic themes and malignant powers in Hereditary before we’re even introduced to the protagonists. The film’s astonishing opening shot is a 2.5-minute long take. With morning light streaming in through the window, the camera pans around Annie’s home studio before settling on a small replica of the family’s own house. The camera then zooms inward on one of the rooms, a bedroom, where we see a lump on the bed, but as the bedroom slowly fills up the screen, we see that this lump is not a miniature rendition of a human, but an actual human. This sound sleeper is Peter, and when the camera has reached its final destination, the room feels like a stage viewed through the perspective of omniscient beings, where an ancient and timeless tragedy has been set in modern day – only these actors aren’t aware that they’re in a play. Right from the get-go we get houses within houses within houses, as Aster ties his characters’ agency to that of Annie’s own miniatures: tiny, unaware, trapped in a world that has been pre-designed, acting out roles that are pre-determined.

It’s extremely fitting that one of the greatest film debuts of all time has one of the most memorable opening shots in recent memory. A shot that is as impressive thematically as it is creatively. It’s movies like this that make me feel like a self-conscious psychopath when I see them in theaters because even with the dark content of the films, I will sit there grinning like an idiot, shaking my head in awe, and suppressing excited bursts of glee from being so utterly enthralled with the artistic choices and technical prowess shown on screen.

I had never seen the same movie in theaters multiple days in a row before this film – nor since – but Hereditary’s layered and symbolic storytelling, brooding terror, poignant performances, and unbelievably accomplished directing cast a dark spell over me, drawing me like a moth to the flame, and I went to see it three consecutive nights the week it came out, five times total while it was in theaters (and countless times since it started streaming online).

I haven’t even touched on Aster and his amazing cast’s devastatingly vulnerable depictions of grief, trauma, and mental illness either, or how they’re folded into the twisting narrative, but this post is probably past the threshold of consumability for the IG format as it is, so I’ll just end with this TL;DR statement: Hereditary is undoubtedly my favorite horror film of all time, and easily one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, regardless of genre.

Distributed by: A24 / Lionsgate Home Entertainment