Thrillfest a family drama in disguise
Hereditary marries horror, melodrama into unnerving tale
At first glance, hardly looks sinister. It begins quietly at a grandmother’s funeral. Annie (Toni Collette), an artist with a fondness for creating miniature dollhouses, feels tired but emotionless. That worries her.
She asks her husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), whether she’s supposed to feel sadder over the death of her mother. He says that will happen in due time. But the events in
will bring no comfort for Annie, her husband or their two children, Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro).
While the movie’s trailers and poster paint it as a thrillfest, is actually a family drama in disguise. Director Ari Aster, in his first feature, marries the horror and melodrama genres into an unnerving movie about grief.
“I pitched the film as a family tragedy that curdles into a nightmare, in the way that life can feel like a nightmare when disaster strikes,” Aster said. “In that way, the film owes a greater debt to domestic melodramas than it does to the horror movie.”
caught moviegoers’ attention at Sundance, where it was one of the more buzzed-about titles among industry insiders and press. It was not unlike the demand for fellow familyhorror film a few years back, when even latenight screenings filled up early. Some have floated the idea that both titles — put out by the indie studio-of-the-moment A24 — are part of a recent spate of creative, critically acclaimed horror movies including and
Aster, however, doesn’t buy the talk that we’re in a time of “peak horror”.
“The horror genre had developed a bad name because so many of them are made so cynically,” he said. “They can be superficial exercises, but I feel like we’ve always had exceptions to that. It’s nothing new that the horror genre is lousy with duds. Even when Rosemary’s or
out, those were the exceptions.”
Collette said the script caught her eye because it was so radically different from the roles that come her way. She quickly connected with Aster, who impressed her with how much of the movie he had already planned out in his head. “He knew every shot he wanted, every nuance,” Collette said. “He sent me pages and pages of backstory.”
For instance, according to Collette, one detail that didn’t forces that no one else can see. Even though she’s not one for horror movies, Collette said the scarier aspects of the film didn’t bother her.
“I really admired that the horror elements were an extension of something really true,” she said. “None of it is gratuitous. Because you are able to get to know the characters at the beginning and you emotionally invest in them as they go through what’s pretty much the most painful period anyone could go through in life.”
Aster said he deliberately amped up the drama in the film slowly. “I’m not affected by anything in a film unless I’m invested in the people at the centre of it,” he said. “I wanted to take my time and immerse