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Hereditary (film)

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Hereditary
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAri Aster
Written byAri Aster
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyPawel Pogorzelski
Edited by
  • Jennifer Lame
  • Lucian Johnston
Music byColin Stetson
Production
companies
Distributed byA24
Release dates
  • January 21, 2018 (2018-01-21) (Sundance)
  • June 8, 2018 (2018-06-08) (United States)
Running time
127 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$10 million[1]
Box office$73.8 million[2]

Hereditary is a 2018 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Ari Aster, in his feature directorial debut. It stars Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, and Gabriel Byrne, and follows a family haunted after the death of their secretive grandmother. Hereditary premiered on January 21, 2018, in the Midnight section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival,[3] and was theatrically released in the United States on June 8, 2018.[4]

Plot

Annie Graham, a miniaturist artist, lives with her husband, Steve, their 16-year-old son Peter, and their 13-year-old daughter Charlie. At the funeral of her secretive mother, Ellen, Annie delivers a eulogy explaining their fraught relationship. Shortly after, Steve is informed that Ellen's grave has been robbed, while Annie thinks she sees Ellen in her workshop. At a support group for those who have lost loved ones, Annie reveals that, growing up, the rest of her family (Ellen included) suffered from a variety of mental illnesses that resulted in their deaths.

Annie forces Peter to take Charlie to a party with him. Unsupervised, Charlie eats cake containing nuts, which she is allergic to, and falls into anaphylactic shock. On the way to the hospital, Charlie partially climbs out of the window to get air. Peter swerves to avoid a dead animal and Charlie is decapitated by a telephone pole. The family grieves following Charlie's funeral, heightening tensions between Annie and Peter. Peter is plagued by Charlie's presence around the house.

Annie is befriended by a support group member, Joan. Annie tells her she used to sleepwalk, and recounts an incident in which she woke up in Peter's bedroom to find herself, Peter, and Charlie covered in paint thinner with a lit match in her hand. Joan teaches Annie to perform a séance to communicate with Charlie.

In a nightmare, Annie reveals to Peter that she tried to abort him when she was pregnant. Awake, she convinces her family to attempt the séance, but Charlie seemingly possesses her until Steve douses her with water. Annie suspects that Charlie's spirit has become malevolent. She throws Charlie's sketchbook into the fireplace, but her sleeve also begins to burn. She retrieves it and heads to Joan's apartment for advice, but Joan has vanished.

Annie goes through her mother's things and finds a photo album linking Joan to Ellen and a book with information about a demon named Paimon, who wishes to inhabit the body of a vulnerable male host. In the attic, Annie finds a decapitated body she believes to be Ellen with strange symbols on the wall.

Peter is seemingly possessed at school and breaks his own nose. Annie reveals to Steve her mother's body and the sketchbook, but Steve suspects Annie of desecrating Ellen's grave herself. Annie begs Steve to burn the sketchbook so she can sacrifice herself to stop the haunting. Steve refuses. Annie tosses the book into the fireplace, and Steve is burned alive. Annie grieves but then is possessed.

Peter awakens to find his father's body horribly burnt and is chased by the possessed Annie into the attic, which is decorated with cult imagery. Annie levitates and beheads herself with a piano wire as naked coven members look on. Peter jumps out of the window to escape and is knocked unconscious. The same light experienced by Charlie and Peter earlier floats down and enters Peter's body as he wakes up. Peter follows Annie's levitating corpse into Charlie's treehouse, where Charlie's crowned, decapitated head rests atop a mannequin. Joan, other coven members and the headless corpses of his mother and grandmother bow to him. Joan greets him as both Charlie and Paimon, stating that he has been liberated from his female host and is now free to rule over them.

Cast

  • Toni Collette as Annie Graham, a miniaturist artist
  • Gabriel Byrne as Steve Graham, Annie's psychiatrist husband
  • Alex Wolff as Peter, Annie and Steve's 16-year-old son
  • Milly Shapiro as Charlie, Annie and Steve's 13-year-old daughter
  • Ann Dowd as Joan, a support group member who befriends Annie

Production

During pre-production, writer-director Ari Aster often referred to the film not as a horror film but rather "a tragedy that curdles into a nightmare."[5] Films said to have influenced Aster in the making of Hereditary include Rosemary's Baby, Cries and Whispers, Don't Look Now, Carrie, Ordinary People, and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.[6]

The film began shooting in February 2017 in Utah.[3] The exteriors of the Graham family house and the tree house were shot in Salt Lake City, and the school scenes were shot in West High School, but all other interiors (including both versions of the treehouse) were built from scratch on a sound stage. Since each of the rooms was built on a stage, walls could be removed to shoot scenes at a much greater distance than a practical location would allow, creating the dollhouse aesthetic of the film.[7]

Release

The trailer for the film was released on January 30, 2018.[8] On Anzac Day in 2018, the trailer for Hereditary played before the PG-rated family film Peter Rabbit in a cinema in Innaloo, Western Australia. According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, the Hereditary preview was accidentally shown to family audiences and created a small panic in the theater. The theater was apparently full of families including "at least 40 children".[9][10][11]

The film was released in the United States by A24 on June 8, 2018. It was released in the United Kingdom by Entertainment Film Distributors on June 15, 2018.[12]

Reception

Box office

As of July 22, 2018, Hereditary has grossed $43.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $30.3 million in other countries, for a total worldwide gross of $73.8 million, against a production budget of $10 million.[2]

In the United States and Canada, Hereditary was released alongside Ocean's 8 and Hotel Artemis, and was originally projected to gross $5–9 million in its opening weekend, similar to the debuts of previous A24 horror films The Witch ($8.8 million in 2016) and It Comes at Night ($6 million in 2017). It was also the widest-ever release for an A24 film with 2,964 theaters, besting the 2,553 of It Comes at Night.[13][14] After making $5.2 million on its first day, including $1.3 million from Thursday night previews, weekend estimates were increased to $12 million. It went on to debut to $13.6 million, finishing fourth at the box office, behind Ocean's 8, Solo: A Star Wars Story and Deadpool 2, and marking the best-ever opening for an A24 title.[1] In its second weekend the film dropped just 48% to $7 million (compared to the 60–70% fall many horror films see in their sophomore frame), finishing sixth.[15]

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 89% based on 256 reviews, and an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Hereditary uses its classic setup as the framework for a harrowing, uncommonly unsettling horror film whose cold touch lingers long beyond the closing credits."[16] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on reviews from 48 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[17]

Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and called it the scariest movie of 2018, saying "it's Collette, giving the performance of her career, who takes us inside Annie's breakdown in flesh and spirit and shatters what's left of our nerves. Her tour de force bristles with provocations that for sure will keep you up nights. But first you'll scream your bloody head off."[18] Alex Hudson from Exclaim! praised the film for avoiding horror movie clichés in favor of genuine scares, saying, "Hereditary avoids cheap shock-and-awe scare tactics almost entirely, instead building up a bone-chilling tension that's relatable and frighteningly realistic."[19] For The A.V. Club, A.A. Dowd gave the film an A−, stating that, "In its seriousness and hair-raising craftsmanship, Hereditary belongs to a proud genre lineage, a legacy that stretches back to the towering touchstones of American horror, unholy prestige-zeitgeist classics like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. Remarkably, it’s a first feature, the auspicious debut of writer-director Ari Aster, whose acclaimed, disturbing short films were all leading, like a tunnel into the underworld, to this bleak vision."[20] Common Sense Media gave the film four out of five stars and advised that it was suitable for viewers aged 17 or older.[21]

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale.[1] Some publications noted the critics-to-audience discrepancy, comparing it to Drive, The Witch and It Comes at Night, all of which were critically acclaimed but failed to impress mainstream moviegoers.[22][23]

References

  1. ^ a b c D'Alessandro, Anthony (June 10, 2018). "'Ocean's 8' Steals Franchise Record With $41.5M Opening – Early Sunday Update". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Business Media. Retrieved June 10, 2018.
  2. ^ a b "Hereditary (2018)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
  3. ^ a b Means, Sean P. (December 19, 2017). "A horror thriller filmed in Utah is among the additions to 2018 Sundance Film Festival lineup". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  4. ^ Guardian staff (January 30, 2018). "Hereditary trailer: will this be the year's scariest movie?". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Retrieved January 30, 2018.
  5. ^ Fear, David (June 12, 2018). "'Hereditary': Inside the Making of a Modern Horror Classic". Rolling Stone. Retrieved June 13, 2018.
  6. ^ Campbell, Christopher (June 11, 2018). "Watch 'Hereditary', Then Watch These Movies". Film School Rejects. Retrieved June 12, 2018.
  7. ^ Aster, Ari; Hammond, Caleb (2018-06-06). "How They Did It: Building Hereditary's Haunted Houses From Scratch Was First-Time Helmer Ari Aster's Living Nightmare". MovieMaker. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
  8. ^ Evans, Greg (January 30, 2018). "'Hereditary' Trailer: First Look At Ari Aster's Horror Pic That Haunted Sundance". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Business Media. Retrieved May 9, 2018.
  9. ^ Allain-Petale, David (April 26, 2018). "Cover your eyes kids: Perth families shown horror flick trailer". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  10. ^ Clift, Tom (April 27, 2018). "A Cinema Traumatised A Bunch Of Kids By Showing A Horror Trailer Before 'Peter Rabbit'". Junkee. Retrieved April 27, 2018.
  11. ^ Sharf, Zack (April 26, 2018). "Australian Movie Theater Plays 'Hereditary' Trailer Before 'Peter Rabbit,' Families Panic and Flee the Cinema". IndieWire. Penske Business Media. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  12. ^ Stolworthy, Jacob (March 20, 2018). "Hereditary: Horror film branded 'scariest in years' gets UK release date". The Independent. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
  13. ^ Fuster, Jeremy (June 6, 2018). "Can 'Ocean's 8' Steal a Huge Box Office Haul Like 'Ocean's Eleven' Did?". TheWrap. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  14. ^ Rubin, Rebecca (June 6, 2018). "Box Office Preview: 'Ocean's 8' Places Bets on $35 Million Bow". Variety. Penske Business Media. Retrieved June 6, 2018.
  15. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (June 17, 2018). "'Incredibles 2' Even Stronger As Pixar Pic Soars To Amazing $181M – Early Sunday Update". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Business Media. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
  16. ^ "Hereditary (2018)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved July 16, 2018.
  17. ^ "Hereditary Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  18. ^ Travers, Peter (June 5, 2018). "'Hereditary' Review: Family Horror Tale Is the Scariest Movie of 2018". Rolling Stone. Retrieved June 6, 2018.
  19. ^ Hudson, Alex (June 4, 2018). "Hereditary". Exclaim!. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
  20. ^ Dowd, A.A. (June 6, 2018). "Family Is a Curse in the Harrowing, Deeply Frightening Hereditary". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  21. ^ Anderson, Jeffrey M. "Hereditary". Common Sense Media. Retrieved June 13, 2018.
  22. ^ Gleiberman, Owen (June 10, 2018). "How Did 'Hereditary' Get a D+ From CinemaScore? For the Crime of Being More Artful Than Sensational". Variety. Penske Business Media. Retrieved June 13, 2018.
  23. ^ Newby, Richard (June 10, 2018). "Why 'Hereditary' Is Dividing Audiences". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved June 13, 2018.

External links

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