Tagline: Every family tree hides a secret.
Synopsis: When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry, trying to outrun the sinister fate they have inherited. (Google)
This movie is SO good. The genre that is talked about in conjunction with this film (and others, more recent, and those of the past) is a new (or rather, revived) field in horror studies: folk horror. I love that term. I talked about it in my post about Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. The key elements of folk horror are landscape, isolation, skewed belief systems and morality, and the summoning/happening, and Hereditary certainly fits with these elements. I can't say too much about the film without giving away the story, but to say this one blew me away is an understatement. Ari Aster is a genius writer and film maker (his film, Midsommar will be featured in another upcoming post) and I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.
If you've seen Hereditary, you should check out this article, Hereditary as Folk Horror.
What is your favorite supernatural horror film?
