What really happened at the end of Ari Aster’s acclaimed debut horror?
One of the most talked about horror films of the last decade, Ari Aster’s Hereditary set the template for what some call “elevated horror”, in the sense that the film is slow, atmospheric and more interested in the metaphysical than slasher kills.
A surprise success when it was released in 2017, Hereditary (which was conceived as a family drama) follows a grieving family who start to become tormented by a demon in the aftermath of the death of their mysterious grandmother.
Toni Collette stars as Annie, who, at the beginning of the film, attends her mother’s funeral and is surprised by the amount of people there to pay their respects. Afterwards, she goes to brief counselling in which she reminisces about their fraught relationship that only began to heal after the birth of Annie’s daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro), who is the only one really upset by the death.
Charlie is a horror movie child in the sense that she makes creepy dolls and does weird things with animals – particularly one thing with a pigeon that is deeply disturbing.
She later accompanies her brother Peter (Alex Wolff) to a party, where her severe nut allergy is triggered after eating a piece of cake. Peter then races Charlie to the hospital in his car, and she sticks her head out of the window for air. Charlie is then decapitated by a wooden post with an occult symbol carved into it.
Suffering from shock, Peter leaves Charlie’s headless body in the back of the car where it is found by their mother the next morning.
Once again struck by grief, Annie makes friends with a woman named Joan (Ann Dowd), who conducts a seance for the two of them in which she appears to contact her deceased grandson.
Awed by the seance, Annie insists her family attend one of their own to contact Charlie. Things, of course, take a very spooky turn as objects begin to move by themselves and Annie seemingly becomes possessed by the spirit of Charlie.
Annie then sees images in Charlie’s sketchbook that depict Peter’s eyes scratched out and, when attempting to burn the book in the fireplace, her clothes go up in flames instead.
Annie slowly begins to discover her mother’s relationship to the occult, finding books that contain references to demons before eventually realising that her mother (Kathleen Chalfant) was Queen Leigh, the leader of a coven.
Hereditary ending: What happens to Annie and her family?
Peter is confronted outside of his school by Joan and she attempts to expel his spirit from his body for the demon king, and it becomes clear soon after that he has become possessed.
Meanwhile, Annie once again wants to burn Charlie’s sketchbook but cannot bring herself to do it. She attempts to convince her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) to throw the book into the fireplace but he refuses and she slings it in anyway but Steve immediately bursts into flames and dies.
Peter later discovers his father’s corpse and the family home has become overtaken by naked coven members and a possessed Annie starts chasing him.
Once in the attic, he watches as his mother beheads herself before he jumps out of the window. Waking up, he heads to Charlie’s treehouse where the naked coven members dance around along with the headless corpses of his mother and grandmother.
Peter is then crowned and addressed as King, with him being the male body the demon was always after. The coven hail him as their ruler, just for being a man.
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