Hereditary

From The Shining to Rosemary’s Baby, many of the best horror films locate their darkest terrors in family relationships, said Tom Shone in The Sunday Times. Hereditary, a “skin-prickling slow-boiler” of a movie, does the same. It stars Toni Collette as an artist whose job involves constructing uncannily realistic miniature-room dioramas. And from the outset the unnerving implication is that, just as she controls the figures in her art, some malevolent force is controlling her, her dope-smoking son (Alex Wolff) and her troubled, aged-looking daughter (Milly Shapiro) – all of whom, after the death of her austere and dominant mother, suffer increasingly disturbing visions and visitations. First-time director Ari Aster proves himself a “natural-born master of horror”, said Dan Jolin in Empire. With “gorgeous Kubrickian precision”, he builds a mood of crawling dread. The film is “anchored” by a “nuanced and very intense” turn from Collette, said Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. Yet for all the hype, this isn’t as terrifying as some are claiming. I don’t know about that, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. There are images here that are “nightmarish to their core”. After watching the film, I found myself lying awake, traumatised, in the early hours. This “feels like a new horror classic”.