Hail Paimon! You Can Read Ari Aster's 'Hereditary' Screenplay!

Screenwriting can be such an underappreciated craft in Hollywood, especially in the way we perceive a film’s success or failure. Often times, a bad film gets blamed on the script, while the director gets much of the credit in the wake of a success. It’s the unfair truth of Hollywood. It’s one of the reasons I used to enjoy reading screenplays with my spare time – you can learn a lot about a film just from diving into the script. (A great example is the phenomenal A Nightmare On Elm Street remake screenplay written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer, which was butchered by music video director Samuel Bayer.)

Beyond the educational value, it’s fun to see how the script compares to what ended up on screen and if there are any variations to what was presented (what reads strong on paper could end up on the cutting room floor). Such the case with Ari Aster‘s masterpiece, Hereditary, which I believe will be nominated for multiple Academy Awards – one of which will be for Aster’s original screenplay. While I haven’t had the chance to read through it yet, Aster’s screenplay is available online, and a quick skim gives me the impression that much of what he wrote ending up word-for-word on screen. If you too believe Hereditary is a masterpiece, it all started at the scripting stage, which makes this an amazing opportunity to be able to get inside Aster’s mind as he wrote one of the most chilling films ever made. (It would behoove aspiring filmmakers to read through and see what they can take away from it.) Read it here.