'Hereditary' is a new horror classic, and a triumph for Toni Collette
A candlelit seance. A spooky child. A house filled with dark memories and buried secrets. It is possible to describe some of the characters, places and events in "Hereditary" while conveying nothing of its steady accumulation of dread, its grim, implacable mood or its lasting power to disturb.
The sensationally gifted writer-director Ari Aster may tip his hat to the horror canon ("Rosemary's Baby," "The Shining"), but he has no interest in making a coy, winking exercise in horror pastiche. With breathtaking deliberation and quiet, unshowy mastery, he spins a devastating portrait of an American family in sudden, inexplicable decline.
There is in fact an explanation, and "Hereditary" is unnerving in part because it makes no attempt to
