Finding a good horror movie that terrifies movie-goers as well as impresses critics is not an easy feat. The genre, at times derivative and cheesy, isn't the kind that often receives a ton of accolades. However, production company A24 is no stranger to creating haunting horror movies that excite audiences. While last year it saw success with A Ghost Story and It Comes at Night, this year Hereditary is shaping up to be equally unnerving as it explores the depths that families will go to hide their secrets.
When Annie Graham, artfully portrayed by the immensely talented Toni Collette, has to bury her mother, her family is confronted with some dark realities of her family's history. As she is dealing with the trauma of having lost her mother, with whom she was not particularly close, her family begins to recognize abnormalities. When it becomes apparent that her youngest is seeing ghosts, we're reminded that things are not as they appear. Certainly that would be enough to label this movie as a simple ghost story, but the truly terrifying aspect is infinitely more haunting.
To discern what is happening to her family, Annie continues to unpack boxes left behind by her mother, each one revealing something more sinister and gut-wrenching than the last. While there is a supernatural element to this film, which forces the audience to question if what they're seeing is real, what makes this film resonate is that it has found a way to take mundane and heartbreaking realities of modern life and twist them into something sinister. How a family, confronted with its own dark history, contends with twisted altercations from the past is at the front of this horrifying family drama. Certainly this is a horror film that recognizes that reality has plenty of things to make for a great scary movie.
Hereditary is set for a June 8 release date.
