Hereditary represents a generational achievement in horror filmmaking and filmmaking period.  Since Hereditary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2018, Hereditary has been compared to such classic horror film titles as The Exorcist and The Shining. 

Hereditary has accumulated such a fearsome reputation that its upcoming theatrical release almost seems anti-climactic.  Everyone who’s seen Hereditary has declared the film to be an instant classic. 

Hereditary marks the feature filmmaking debut for writer-director Ari Aster, who spent the past decade making short films.  “The reactions have been very exciting,” says Aster.  “To be honest, I was initially just very relieved that people didn’t think it was a giant piece of shit.” 

Hereditary tells the story of Annie Graham (Toni Collette), a woman who suspects that her mother’s death has unleashed a supernatural force that threatens to destroy Annie and her family. 

DG: What was the genesis of, the inspiration for, Hereditary, and what is the significance of the film’s title? 

AA: I wanted to make a serious meditation on grief and trauma that gradually curdles into a nightmare – the way that life can feel like a nightmare when disaster strikes. The true significance of the title shouldn’t dawn on the viewer until the end of the film, but suffice it to say that Hereditary is concerned primarily with the insidiousness of family ties. Over the course of the film, it becomes increasingly clear that this family has no free will; their fate has been passed down to them, and it’s an inheritance that they have no hope of shaking.

DG: What were the themes that you wanted to explore with this film? 

AA: There are lots of movies about tragedy bringing people together and strengthening bonds. I wanted to make a film about all the ways that grief can tear people apart and how trauma can totally transform a person – and not necessarily for the better! Hereditary is a buffet of worst-case scenarios leading to an ugly, hopeless end. Now I just need to investigate why I wanted to do all that.

DG: What was the stylistic, visual strategy that you and your cinematographer discussed prior to the start of filming, and how would you describe the look and tone of the film?

AA: Well, I’ve been working with my DP, Pawel Pogorzelski, since I met him at AFI, and we’ve developed an amazing shorthand. We speak the same language, to such an extent that we become quite upset with each other at the very hint of a disagreement or misunderstanding. The way I work – and I’m sure that there are better ways of working – is that I always begin by composing a shot list, and I don’t talk to anyone in the crew until that shot list is complete. From there, questions of execution, lighting, production design, etc, become central. But first, every head of department needs to be able to see the film in their head. In this case, the camera would be very fluid, detached, observational – encroaching. The tone is tough to speak to…but I can say that I would often tell the crew that the film should feel evil. We’re with the family, and we’re joined to them in our ignorance of what’s really happening, but there should also be the sense that we’re watching them from a more knowing, sadistic perspective. 

DG:  What are the genre influences that you brought to this film, and what do you think audiences will find most compelling and frightening about this film? 

AA: It was important to me that we attend to the family drama before we attended to the horror elements. The film needed to stand on its own as a domestic tragedy before it could work as a scary movie. So, most of the references that I gave to the crew were not horror films. Mike Leigh was one – especially Secrets and Lies and All or Nothing. We also talked seriously about The Ice Storm and In the Bedroom, which has a reversal at the 30-minute mark that isn’t so different from the one in Hereditary. Bergman is one of my heroes, and Cries and Whispers was something I was thinking about, along with Autumn Sonata for the way that it dealt with the mother-daughter relationship. The horror films we discussed were mostly from the 60s and 70s. Rosemary’s Baby was an obvious touchstone. Don’t Look Now is a big one. Nicholas Roeg, in general, was big for me. I love Jack Clayton’s The Innocents. And then there are the great Japanese horror films – Ugetsu, Onibaba, Empire of Passion, Kwaidan, Kuroneko…

DG: How would you describe the family dynamic that exists within the Graham family when we first meet them in the film, and how would you describe the journey they take throughout the film? 

AA: The Grahams are already isolated from each other when we meet them. The air needed to be thick with a fraught, unacknowledged history. From there, things occur that only serve to alienate them further, and by the end of the film, each member of the family becomes a total stranger – if not a seeming double of themselves – to the other. To reference Freud’s essay on the uncanny, the home in Hereditary becomes resolutely unhomelike.

DG:  How would you describe the nature of the malevolent presence that plagues the Graham family in the film, and how do they respond to this?

AA: There are many toxic influences at play. Guilt, resentment, blame, distrust…and then there’s a demon, too. 

DG: How would you describe the nature of the relationship that exists, both in life and death, between Charlie and her grandmother, Ellen? 

AA: To explain this would be to betray some pretty big reveals in the film. I’ll refrain to avoid spoiling!

DG:  What was the biggest challenge that you faced during the filming? 

AA: We built the entire interior of the house on a sound stage. Everything inside the house was designed and built from scratch. Beyond this, we had the additional challenge of needing to create a miniature replica of the house (among many other miniatures). This meant that we needed to design every element of the home well in advance of shooting. That doesn’t just mean that we needed to decide on the layout of the house and the dimensions of the rooms, which is actually the easiest thing for the miniaturist to replicate; it meant that we needed to make committed decisions regarding the set dressing very early on. So, we needed to know what the furniture would be, what the wallpaper would be, what plants we’d have in each room, what drapes we’d be putting over the window, and so on and so forth. We shot everything involving the dollhouses in our last week of production, and it was so tight that we had miniatures being shipped in on the very days that they were being shot.

Hereditary will be released on June 8, 2018.