6 Years Ago Today, The Most Brain-rattling Horror Movie Was Released in Theaters
Today (June 8, 2024) marks the sixth anniversary of Hereditary’s release. The movie has given audiences an unforgettable experience and changed the modern horror genre. It was directed by Ari Aster in his directorial debut and was praised for its chilling narrative and compelling acting, especially from Toni Collette. It has become the standard psychological thriller on which many films are based today and has influenced filmmakers worldwide.
Hereditary is different from other horror movies because of its psychological drama and supernatural elements. The plot of the film revolves around the Graham family, which is haunted by bizarre events after their secluded grandmother passes away. The family then finds out secrets about their past, which is followed by a horrifying climax.
Hereditary Was a Critical and Box Office Success
Hereditary was well-received by critics and viewers for its depth and originality. Ari Aster‘s direction delivered exactly the requirements of the movie. The film’s haunting score by Colin Stetson was a cherry on top, and the powerful performances by the cast completed the whole package.
The film holds a 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 87 on Metacritic. Hereditary was a commercial success too. According to The Numbers, the movie was made under a $10 million production-budget. It made around $44,069,456 in the domestic circuit and $36,891,787 internationally, making around $81 million in the worldwide collection.
The film holds many interesting details that add to its uniqueness. It is influenced by The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King, an archaic scripture of demonology. This makes it more horrifying, as the movie is inspired by occult practices.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Aster talks about his deep research and inspirations.
I especially did a lot of research into different spiritual movements, and those were in some ways the richest well that I drew from. Beyond that, I was thinking about different fairy tales and visual artists like Joel-Peter Witkin, who was on my mind when I was working with the prosthetics artist on the corpses. And I learned the runic alphabet.
Annie Graham’s role as a miniaturist artist also plays an important role in the plot of the film. The miniatures reflect the characters’ lives and foreshadow key events, which adds a symbolic depth to the story.
Toni Collette as Annie Graham, Gabriel Byrne as Annie’s husband Steve Graham, Alex Wolff as their teenage son Peter Graham, Milly Shapiro as their daughter Charlie Graham, and other cast members delivered their roles perfectly in the movie.
Ari Aster viewed Hereditary as a family tragedy that slowly turned into a horror thriller. His objective was to explore grief and familial pain through an angle of paranormal terror. The approach resulted in an effect that is both emotionally upsetting and scary.
Ari Aster Did Not Want Hereditary to Be a Typical Horror Movie
In Hereditary, Aster develops a horror story that is as much about family grief as the paranormal. Aster has seamlessly blended a family drama and a horror thriller into a movie. He understood the conventional paths of both horror and family tragedy. However, he decided not to repeat them, and gave them a fresh twist.
In an interview with Vox, Aster reveals the complexity of his filmmaking technique. He talks about how the breakdown of communication within a family is a classic narrative to build the drama in the movie. He said,
This is a pretty pervasive thing in the family drama or the American domestic tragedy — the breakdown of communication so that things can later be blurted out, and heard. But before that, we have to have the person who allows for the obligatory exposition and they’re new to the picture.
Ann Dowd served that function in a perverse way. But she comes in and when she comes in, she’s badly needed at least by Toni Colette’s character. She is a much-needed source of warmth and compassion.
Aster also mentions how he was inspired to show family tragedy. Despite having supportive parents, he mentioned in the interview that he saw people he loved get affected by family complications. He used that experience in the movie to show more serious suffering. He wanted to base the core of the movie on the grief of loss, as he revealed in an AMA on Reddit,
The first images that came to me (before writing) were Charlie’s head being knocked off by the telephone pole and Annie levitating while sawing off her own head (the concept of a mother so destroyed by what happened to her child that she has to do it to herself). I built the movie around that and the other.
Aster’s approach to horror is symbolic and grounded. He did not want the mystical elements like witchcraft and demons to be the primary focus of the movie. By adapting essential horror clichés, he creates a film in which the true terrors are the unsaid agonies within a family.
