Hereditary: My Personal Favorite but Also the One That Definitely Keeps Me Awake at Night

“The horror film attempts to bring about a confrontation with the abject (the corpse, bodily wastes, the monstrous feminine) in order finally to eject the abject and redraw the boundaries between human and non-human.” (Creed, Chapter 1)

Hereditary seems to confront the abject, only for the boundaries to be blurred and jumbled about in the end, there are no clear distinctions, or at least those distinctions are not redrawn in a way to separate them. This movie is full of character dynamics and flaws that drive the narrative forward.

I think I want to talk about the mother’s portrayal because she’s like, basically the main character and it sticks. I think I especially want to talk about how the family deals with grief, because I think a lot of hereditary is about grief of losing someone close (a family member). And I personally believe there’s this weird, Women supernatural/women being “over” emotional thing happening. Like, in both Hereditary and Midsommer, the women are the ones to literally scream and agonize and it’s shown in all of its grossness and presence in the films (~37 minutes for Heredity especially). Especially in midsummer, we get to see Dani go hardcore with her grief (both actresses for Dani and Annie are absolutely amazing by the way). But none of the men go through this, and because we’ve been reading Clover and Creed and go to a liberal arts school, those gendered expressions of grief stick out like a really big, swollen sore thumb.

What would the film have been like if it were the father displaying that level of grief? Would a viewer be pulled out from the experience just because it was a man crying and wailing, and in that case, well there’s the entire issue? It just keeps bringing me back to something Clover said in a earlier article, although I’m paraphrasing, about how women are prettier to watch be tortured. Heck, horror movies are referenced as for “tits and screams” so it’s not like her assertion is wrong. Women, I believe, are also allowed to be more emotionally expressive in media and heteronormative spaces, but this is at the cost of also coming off as over the top and dramatic. It’s also worth mentioning how Hereditary also have Clover’s trope of women being the gateways for the supernatural, and women being the more spiritually/supernaturally intelligent. Heck the mom’s in a weird cult that her mother was in, and also the entire existence of Joan being dead when Annie meets her. I also think it’s worth mentioning that Charlie appears to be Pan, or at least Pan uses Charlie as some way to help torture and continuously scare Peter. In addition, all the weird Pan stuff only happens to others after Charlie dies, even though odd, unnatural, and often troubling surrounds Charlie, who, albeit pretty odd, is portrayed as nice and innocent and a sympathizable character. But Pan first comes to Charlie and Annie in like, weird forms and visions. They see it and can seem to interact with the supernatural much earlier.

I know it’s beating a dead horse given the article, but the Father is so against anything supernatural, and rejects everything Annie says and tries to come off as rational and correct (although he dies). Where he’s unspoken and cold and trying to hide his emotions Annie if full of excess of emotion and spirituality and all. Especially in this ending part too, Annie is like, freaking out, breathing heavy, raspy and scared voice throughout and it’s contrasted against Steve with the seemingly rational advice to call the police. I think the wildest part is this is where the movie feels a lot like the Babadook and other mother stories. Annie gets possessed by Pan or whatever it is, she’s agonizing, a flash zooms over her, her face goes blank, and from there everything is batshit crazy and Annie is definitely possessed by something supernatural. Now the only on screen dynamic is the mother-son one, but they’re not a team (where I view Emelia and Sam as a team in the end), they’re against each other. And even though what’s likely controlling Annie is this weird cult god thing, there’s convincing enough evidence that this isn’t the first mother-son issue (the about to light Peter on fire thing, the internalized aggression brought out at dinner).

I think it’s also worth mentioning the one aspect I really have some hesitations with. Mental illness. Annie first brings it up about her relatives at the grief group, and near the end Steve keeps thinking Annie is sick. Like I get it, it’s cool not to be able to tell if Annie’s making things up or if she’s reliable, but I really just can’t find a reason to bring in past mental illness save for the films name, Hereditary. Like, could it not have been alluded to that she was not reliable some other way? Aka, forgetting that Joan was her mothers’ friend until she finds a picture, which is exactly what happens, by the way, or having her connection to the cult be more than just a necklace, which is also kind of alluded to. I don’t get why mental illness, even though schizophrenia does have some genetic play, needs to be pinpointed out. That could be just me but it’s a tiresome and misinformative trope nonetheless.

I think the family relationships are probably the largest and most convoluted aspect in hereditary, and you could focus on any character’s relationship to any others and talk for quite a while about it. For example, a brief look at Charlie and the mother’s relationship. The Grandmother’s the one to really raised Charlie (who says was hoping for a boy), and breastfed her (which is even weirder), and it causes tension in the aftermath of the grandmother’s death. And Charlie brings this up to Annie, and Annie doesn’t understand exactly what Charlie needs care wise (who pushes a like, younger sibling to go to a high school party)? Each of these relationships, including with Charlie, play into the character themselves. Annie feels alone, rejected, and very guilty about many things, and the relationships we see only emphasize how lonely Annie feels. I think the nuclear family deconstruction is everywhere in media is because it’s something so common and in part recognizable to so many people, and thus examine abjectness in light of these dysfunctional families is super popular. I can recognize parts of myself in Peter, and parts of myself in Annie or any of their relationships. So, when anything derails itself, when Annie says she can’t forgive Peter, when Peter continuously refuses to say anything about the incident, when the father tries to be a mediator but in doing so comes off too detached and unsympathetic, there are recognizable starts and traits.

Going back quickly to the quote I dropped at the top, there’s definitely a focus on corpses in Hereditary. The grandmothers rotting corpse in the attic, Charlie’s overnight body and head, and Annie’s dream of Peter’s rotting head. Even Annie’s doll corpse representations! It’s all real creepy and definitely does what it sets out to do.

As a side note, I love Hereditary so much, I’m generally pretty desensitized to horror but the buildup to Charlie’s death and that scene where the mom like, slithers up the wall near the finale both make me catch my breath in genuine shock/fright (along with other scenes too). Also fun story, I was watching it with a friends and 100% said the necklaces meant a cult and I was 100% right and I was proud. I also adore any scene off Annie’s doll houses that transition to ‘real’ settings and vice versa.

Another side note, I just want to put out there that Alex Wolf was in the Naked Brothers Band. Just gonna leave that here too as a way for me to fall asleep better not thinking about Hereditary, because I have to sleep with a light on whenever I watch Hereditary.

Also Also, someone put spongebob music over Annie uhh, mime sawing(???) her neck, and I chuckle everytime I watch it. --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7cWB15sWwE