Hereditary

OUT 8 october / cert 15 / 127 mins

The horrifying thing about Ari Aster’s debut feature is not the tinge of supernatural weirdness that haunts the Graham family. It’s not even the creepy dollhouse that reproduces the family home. What will really chill your bones is the possibility that every plot development here has an entirely rational explanation, that this family is merely being torn apart by grief, mental breakdown and appalling, awful luck. From the opening scenes, in which Toni collette’s Annie eulogises her recently deceased mother in such scathing terms that you have to wonder which of them is the real monster, this film creates a sense of gathering unease that gets nastily under your skin. Some viewers criticised the operatic finale for straying too far from that creepy build-up, but honestly, it’s almost a relief that something finally breaks the tension, however grotesque the results. This is one of those horrors that will take some getting over.