Welcome to the Graham Family Reunion, Sponsored by Paimon and Poor Life Choices
If family drama and demonic possession had a baby, it would be Hereditary. And that baby would grow up to whisper unsettling things, sculpt creepy miniatures, and decapitate its sister with the enthusiasm of a Pixar protagonist discovering their destiny.
Ari Aster’s 2018 directorial debut isn’t just horror — it’s grief therapy with a side of Satanic PowerPoint. It’s a film that doesn’t jump-scare you so much as it slowly crawls into your soul, lights a candle, and whispers, “You good?” Spoiler: you’re not.
This is a story about loss — loss of loved ones, sanity, and faith in humanity’s ability to handle séances responsibly. It’s also a story about how sometimes your biggest family secret isn’t that Grandma was racist — it’s that she led a demonic cult that wants to use your teenage son as a vessel for an ancient male demon king. We’ve all been there.
Toni Collette: Patron Saint of Emotional Breakdown
Let’s get this out of the way: Toni Collette gives the performance of her career here. If there were an Oscar for “Acting So Hard It Hurts,” she’d have won it by a landslide. Watching her unravel is like watching a masterclass in despair taught by someone whose syllabus is printed on human skin.
Her character, Annie Graham, is an artist who makes miniature replicas of traumatic events in her life — because therapy is expensive, and why not immortalize your suffering in 1:12 scale? Collette balances manic energy with devastating grief so expertly that you start to suspect she could’ve made Midsommar all by herself with just a glue gun and a scream.
When she screams at her son, “I am your mother!” you can feel centuries of pent-up maternal rage coursing through her. Somewhere, Norman Bates and Carrie White’s mom are giving her a standing ovation.
Alex Wolff: The Teen Angst to End All Teen Angst
Alex Wolff plays Peter, Annie’s teenage son and the eventual host for everyone’s favorite demon, Paimon. He begins as your average moody stoner with a perpetually guilty expression, and by the end, he’s turned into the literal embodiment of “It’s not a phase, Mom.”
Wolff spends most of the movie looking like he just realized his weed stash is possessed. His performance is so convincing that when he starts smashing his own face into a desk, you can’t tell if it’s acting or just an appropriate reaction to A24 scripts.
By the time Peter jumps out of the attic window and becomes the reincarnated King of Hell, you can’t help but think: this is the most productive thing a teenage boy has done in decades.
Milly Shapiro: The Creepiest Child Since That Ring Girl
Milly Shapiro, as Charlie, gives us one of the most unsettling horror kids in cinematic history — and this is a genre that practically runs on creepy children. From her unsettling clicking sound (which you’ll still hear echoing in your nightmares at 3 a.m.) to her habit of decapitating pigeons for fun, she’s every parent’s worst nightmare and every cult’s best investment.
Her death — the now-infamous telephone pole incident — is so shocking, so grotesquely abrupt, that it redefined what horror could do. It’s the moment where everyone in the theater collectively stopped chewing their popcorn and started questioning their life choices.
It’s also, let’s be honest, the only time anyone has ever died mid–asthma attack while holding a nutty piece of cake and made it art.
Gabriel Byrne: The Human Xanax
Gabriel Byrne plays Steve, the world’s most tired psychiatrist and possibly the most patient man in horror history. He spends the entire movie calmly watching his wife go insane, his son hallucinate demons, and his family cat probably die off-screen, and he reacts with the energy of a man who just wants to finish his soup in peace.
Steve’s eventual fate — bursting into flames because his wife threw the wrong book into the fire — feels like the universe’s way of saying, “Even the quiet ones deserve chaos.” RIP Steve. You were too normal for this family, and too flammable for this movie.
Ann Dowd: The Friend You Should Never Accept Cookies From
Ann Dowd’s Joan initially seems like a kind stranger who helps Annie process her grief. Then, about halfway through, you realize she’s basically the head cheerleader for the Demon Summoning Club. She introduces Annie to séances, spiritual healing, and the concept of “Hey, what if your daughter isn’t really gone, just… inside a demon portal?”
Ann Dowd delivers her performance with the kind of calm, manipulative cheer that makes you want to change your locks and delete Facebook. She’s basically that one MLM friend — except instead of selling essential oils, she’s selling eternal damnation.
Ari Aster’s Direction: Domestic Terrorism, But Make It Cinema
What Ari Aster achieves with Hereditary is nothing short of miraculous. This is a movie where grief is the real monster, and demons are just the extended metaphor that shows up late to the party. Every frame feels deliberately cruel, like the camera itself wants to watch you squirm.
The film’s visual design — all those tiny dollhouse-like sets — makes you feel like you’re watching people whose fates are literally being puppeteered. It’s brilliant, claustrophobic, and mildly offensive if you’re someone who gets anxiety from IKEA furniture.
Aster doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares; he relies on dread, silence, and family dinners that feel more dangerous than any haunted basement. The dinner table scene alone deserves its own category at the Oscars — “Best Scene to Make You Call Your Therapist.”
The Sound Design: Every Click, Every Whisper, Every Screaming Soul
The sound design in Hereditary deserves its own demon cult. The constant creaks, whispers, and that horrifying “click” make you question whether it’s coming from the movie or your own subconscious.
The score, by Colin Stetson, sounds like an orchestra of grieving ghosts tuning their instruments in a thunderstorm. It’s haunting, dissonant, and guaranteed to make you stare nervously at your ceiling fan for weeks.
Themes: Death, Grief, and the World’s Worst Family Legacy
At its core, Hereditary is about how we can’t escape the things our families pass down — trauma, guilt, and, in this case, demonic royalty. It’s the kind of story that makes you call your mom afterward just to make sure she hasn’t secretly been leading a cult.
It’s a slow, devastating unraveling — where each revelation makes you realize how little control anyone has. The title Hereditary isn’t just about genetics. It’s about inevitability — how horror, like mental illness or family dysfunction, gets passed down whether you like it or not.
And the final twist — Peter’s soul replaced by the demon Paimon, his mother’s corpse bowing before him — is equal parts horrifying and hilarious. Because really, who among us hasn’t wanted to be worshipped by our parents just once?
Final Thoughts: The Family Drama to End All Family Dramas
Hereditary isn’t just one of the best horror films of the 21st century — it’s one of the best films, period. It’s the kind of movie that doesn’t need a jump scare because it already jumped straight into your existential dread.
It’s the horror version of Thanksgiving dinner: uncomfortable, emotional, filled with regret, and ending with someone’s head missing.
Ari Aster turned grief into an art form, Toni Collette turned despair into an Olympic sport, and A24 turned trauma into box-office gold.
So if you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if The Exorcist, Ordinary People, and a family counseling session had a baby, Hereditary is your answer. Just… don’t eat the cake.
Final Rating: ★★★★★
(Five out of five decapitated heads — one for each stage of grief, and one extra for Paimon’s crowning achievement.)
