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Hereditary
Movie

Hereditary

2018 • Drama, Horror, Mystery

Woke Score
5
out of 10

Plot

When her mentally ill mother passes away, Annie (Toni Collette), her husband (Gabriel Byrne), son (Alex Wolff), and daughter (Milly Shapiro) all mourn her loss. The family turn to different means to handle their grief, including Annie and her daughter both flirting with the supernatural. They each begin to have disturbing, otherworldly experiences linked to the sinister secrets and emotional trauma that have been passed through the generations of their family.

Overall Series Review

Hereditary is a profoundly disturbing horror film that grounds its terror in the total disintegration of the nuclear family unit and the relentless nature of inherited trauma, both psychological and supernatural. The story follows the Graham family as they are tormented by unsettling events following the death of the secretive matriarch. The film operates as a relentless family tragedy before revealing its occult underpinnings, where the true evil is found within the generational 'heritage' itself. The narrative focuses on the internal collapse of mother, father, son, and daughter as they succumb to grief, resentment, and a preordained, demonic destiny. The themes are strictly confined to family, trauma, and the occult, sidestepping contemporary social and political issues entirely.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

The film focuses entirely on the internal strife of a specific, non-diverse, middle-class family. Character relationships and tragedy are driven by psychology, grief, and occult fate, not race or intersectional hierarchy. The narrative is colorblind to the point of irrelevance, with no attempts to vilify 'whiteness' or lecture on privilege.

Oikophobia8/10

The central horror of the movie is the deconstruction and destruction of the family and its home. The film's 'heritage' is a multi-generational, destructive secret cult run by the ancestors who prey upon their own descendants. The family unit and ancestral lineage are framed as the source of all evil and chaos for the protagonists, achieving a total deconstruction of the home and family institution.

Feminism6/10

The main female characters, Annie and the grandmother Ellen, are the primary agents of the plot and the source of its spiritual power, but Annie is depicted as deeply flawed, traumatized, and anti-natalist, feeling a lack of agency over her own life and motherhood. The film's occult plot is driven by a demon who specifically requires a male host, a concept that can be interpreted as a comment on gender roles and the lack of value afforded to the female, which elevates the score slightly from the low end of the spectrum.

LGBTQ+1/10

The core relationships are strictly traditional male-female pairings. The supernatural plot focuses on a demon's ritual requirement for a male host, an occult gender-based biological requirement, not a commentary on human sexual identity or gender ideology. The nuclear family structure is the object of the occult attack, rather than being framed as inherently 'oppressive' by the film's moral framework.

Anti-Theism9/10

The film features a literal, triumphant satanic cult dedicated to summoning a pagan demon king from Hell, King Paimon. There is no presence of traditional, transcendent morality or a force of good to oppose the evil, which operates as the established spiritual reality. Traditional religion, particularly Christianity, is entirely absent or replaced by the overwhelming power and objective truth of an evil, organized occult system.