Reinventing the horror movie: 'Hereditary' (2018)

by Katherine Kim ’22, A&E Contributor

[Warning: this article contains spoilers for Hereditary].

As Halloween approaches, those eager for a scare will inevitably scour the internet for potential horror movies to watch. People tend to watch past horror flicks more frequently than those presently playing in theaters, which is a sad but unsurprising tradition. Though scaring audiences might sound easy, every audience member perceives potential scares differently, so directors must use many cinematic techniques to ensure that their audiences feel fear when watching their movies. Most directors are tentative to branch out from what has scared viewers in past, which results in movies loaded with horror clichés. However, Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018) breathes fresh air into the genre by delivering a terrifying narrative that undoubtedly secures its spot on horror movie watch lists everywhere.

Hereditary delves into the life of miniaturist artist Annie Graham. The movie focuses on the events that happen to her family after her mother passes away. Though director Ari Aster does include supernatural elements in the film, it stays far away from stereotypical house haunting narratives in both directorial style and material.

In the very first shot of Hereditary, audiences see a treehouse through a room window. Besides the groaning strings in the score, nothing in this scene blatantly acts as something to frighten the audience.

The sun shines brightly on the neatly constructed treehouse, and the camera slowly pans around the room as if it were the room’s unbothered occupant. Despite all these cues that indicate normalcy, Aster expertly creates a frightening atmosphere for viewers by using a minimalistic style.

Instead of overloading the audience’s senses, Aster employs only the score to instill a sense of disquiet in his audience. The strings are unpredictable. Audiences expect something to happen when the sound of the strings grows to a startling volume, but nothing jumps into the frame or disturbs the camera’s slow pan across the room. It is a scene that scares the audience effectively and helps distinguish the film from other horror movies. It does not utilize any of the clichés audiences have come to know such as jumpscares, quick cuts, and spooky settings.

Other than its deviation from most horror clichés, Hereditary scares viewers because it packs loads of heavy thematic material that should hit home for many. Most of the horror in this film comes from each member of Annie’s family as they fail to communicate with each other. This triggers grief, PTSD, and emotional breakdowns for everyone in the house. Thus, instead of constructing a melodramatic horror story, Aster uses the family narrative to his advantage. Audiences grow frightened when watching Heredittary because everyone, at some point, can identify some part of their own family in what is happening on screen. As the film progresses, viewers begin to fear that a lack of communication might lead them down the same path of agony that Annie’s family experiences. It all seems plausible to the audience because these events have a much greater chance of happening to the average person than the appearance of a serial killer terrorizing the neighborhood.

In another twist, the main characters of Hereditary behave like honorable protagonists suffering from corrupt influences. Previous horror movies tend to indicate an inherent evil lurking within main characters, like in Rob Reiner’s Misery (1980) or Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968). However, Annie and her family do not exhibit wicked intentions, and only begin to show terrifying behavior when their boundaries of trust and connection dissolve as a result of their grieving. The most memorable example of this behavior occurs in the middle of the movie, when a fed-up Annie, played by Toni Collette, screams at her son Peter for not telling her about a crucial event immediately. Annie delivers her speech in such a degrading and vicious way that no one could doubt it is emotional abuse. Consequently, Aster emphasizes the importance of empathy and healthy communication by showing how the perfect family unit turns horribly distorted without those aspects.

With effective scare tactics and alarmingly realistic situations, Hereditary has chilled audiences everywhere and has cemented itself as a staple of the horror movie genre. Horror junkies now have this option for the perfect film to watch on Halloween night. But, viewers beware: Hereditary is a highly-disturbing narrative that may alarm the faint of heart.