Hereditary Milly Shapiro.Photo:A24
A24
If the final scenes ofHereditaryhad you mind blown, you’re not alone.
Ellen’s daughter, Annie Graham (Toni Collette), becomes increasingly frantic as her family deals with compounding loss and seemingly supernatural forces. The ending is foreshadowed throughout the movie, as disturbing behavior from Annie’s kids and herself eventually turns fatal.
Aster has cited family trauma as a major theme in the movie, which is now streaming on Netflix. “Ultimately, I did want to make a film that was seriously tackling these issues and operating almost as a meditation on [familial trauma], while at the same time functioning as an exciting genre film that hopefully delivers,” he toldVoxin 2018.
Here’s everything to know about theHereditaryending, from Annie’s confrontation with the dead to reckoning with her unknown family history — and beyond.
Warning:Hereditaryspoilers ahead!
What leads up to the ending ofHereditary?
Hereditary Milly Shapiro, Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff.A24
The Graham family’s youngest child, Charlie (Milly Shapiro), is clearly an outcast while her older brother Peter (Alex Wolff) falls into a much more mainstream pack at school. Charlie rarely speaks, only making clicking sounds, and was seen earlier in the film cutting the head off of a pigeon to make a kind of toy.
The initial turning point inHereditarytakes place relatively early on in the film, when Peter asks his mom if he can go to a party and she encourages him to bring Charlie along.
Annie finds Charlie’s headless body in the morning and from this point on continues to struggle with sleeplessness, becomes increasingly erratic and returns to a grief support group, which she originally attended after her mother’s death.
In the parking lot, she meets Joan (Ann Dowd), a seemingly harmless woman, but when Annie goes to her apartment, there’s a strange connection that becomes the viewer’s first clue: Joan’s welcome mat is made in the same pattern that Ellen used to crochet.
Later, Joan and Annie have another parking lot run-in and Joan tells her that she recently participated in a séance, during which she made contact with her dead grandson. She suggests to Annie that it may work to contact Charlie, so they try it and Joan seemingly conjures her grandson.
How doesHereditaryend?
Hereditary Alex Wolff.A24
Later on, Annie finds her mother’s headless body in her own attic, adding to the ramping of the final moments. Throughout the movie, Annie strives to protect her family, but in the end she, too, falls victim to this ongoing tragedy. After watching her husband die while being engulfed in flames, she becomes possessed. Tricked into calling upon the demon, Annie cuts off her own head with a wire, giving in to the power of Paimon.
While Peter attempts to escape his mother and the cult members who have appeared in the house, he leaps out of the attic window to his death. This allows Paimon’s spirit to enter his body and he stands up and starts to make clicking noises just like his sister used to.
According to Aster, this ending is happy for some and devastating for others. Speaking about Charlie toVarietyin 2018, he said, “From the moment she’s born … there’s a girl that was displaced."
In the end, though, Aster thinks she has finally found a place to rest. “See, it’s a happy ending,” he said.
What is the meaning behind the end ofHereditary?
WhileHereditaryuses the horror genre to exaggerate ideas and entertain, its foundational theme is trauma, according to Aster.
“I knew that I really wanted to make a film about the corrosive effects of trauma on a family unit," he told Vox. “I knew that I wanted to make a film that had sort of an ouroboros quality about a family that’s basically eating itself in its grief.”
The filmmaker said that he had to look inward to find the inspiration for the movie.
“It’s a story that I certainly had in me,” Aster said. “At the end … the movie is still about how trauma can utterly transform a person, and not necessarily for the better."
What is the significance of the doll house inHereditary?
Hereditary Toni Collette.A24
ThroughoutHereditary, Annie is seen working on a doll house, which depicts her family and the actual traumatic events that happened to them, including Charlie’s decapitation.
In a 2018 conversation withNPR, Aster explained the significance of the dioramas.
Is there a sequel toHereditary?
Hereditary Toni Collette and Ann Dowd.A24
There is currently no sequel toHereditarybut rumors have swirled a few times about Aster creating a second film, asHereditary 2was listed as “in development” on IMDb in 2022.
Aster hasn’t completely written the idea off. “I have an idea for a sequel toHereditary …Who knows if I’ll ever do it," he said at a 2023 Q&A, perThis Week Media.
Lead actress Collette, however, is not so sure. In a 2021 conversation with theDaily News, she responded to the rumors and said, “My headless character? Where does she go?”
Collette continued, “I would not have a clue … I don’t know what is being concocted in Ari Aster’s fascinating mind. You never know. Never say never, but I can’t imagine it ever eventuating.”
AreHereditaryandMidsommarconnected?
Many fans of Aster’s work have speculated thatHereditaryandMidsommarare actually connected and the famous director has said those theories aren’t totally wrong.
“There’s no Paimon involved [inMidsommar]," Aster toldFandangoin 2019. “But I would say that the film is something of a companion toHereditary, although the similarities didn’t really occur to me until we were on set. And thematic ties became apparent to me. But nothing so overt as Paimon worshipping.”
He also explained in a video postedon Xin 2019 that “both films are very much about family. I also feel that both films kind of deal with codependency, in a way.”
Hereditary Milly Shapiro and Toni Collette.A24
Hereditaryis entirely fictional. That said, Aster has cited his own fears and existential horrors about dying as inspiration for his storytelling, in addition to trauma within his own family unit.
“I have an amazing relationship with my parents and with my younger brother. I have incredibly supportive parents who are both artists,” he told Vox. “But I can say that there has been a lot of suffering in my family. I can’t really talk about it. It didn’t befall me, but it’s befallen people that I care very deeply about.”
Aster continued, “I wanted to make a film about suffering that took suffering seriously … It occurred to me that the horror genre was the right playground for this because I wanted to say something uncompromising, and I wasn’t in a place where I had the bittersweet ending in me.”
Where can I watchHereditary?
Hereditaryis available to stream on Netflix.
source: people.com
