Welcome back to Movie Recapped. Today I will show you a horror,
mystery, drama film from 2018, titled Hereditary. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
A view from a window reveals a tree house in the backyard. Next, a workshop is seen, filled with
miniature models, including a very special one of the house itself and its inhabitants.
Steve walks into Peter's room to wake him up for his grandmother's funeral. Before he leaves,
he asks him if his sister slept in her room the previous night. He exits the house to find the
girl, as Annie is already sitting in the car waiting for them. Steve finds Charlie sleeping
in the treehouse and he scolds her for sleeping there. In the funeral home, Annie is giving her
mother's eulogy. She calls her a very secretive and private woman. While Annie is speaking,
Charlie is drawing her portrait in her notebook. Her father sees her doing it and stops her.
Later, Charlie walks over to the open casket and sees her grandmother's necklace. She looks
at the other people saying goodbye and notices a woman put something on the dead woman's lips,
then opens a chocolate and starts eating right there. Her family walk over to her and ask her
if it has nuts in it because she's allergic. They come back home after the funeral and walk inside
the house greeting Maxie. Annie asks Steve if she should be sadder. Later, she's working on
a miniature of her mother in the hospice, when Steve comes in and they chat a little. Peter is
in his room playing the guitar and Steve checks up on him too. Annie goes over to Charlie's room. She
sees a drawing of her grandma and noticing how distressed Charlie is, Annie tries to comfort
her by saying that she was her favorite. The grandma was very protective of her. Charlie asks
who will take care of her when she dies too and her mom tells her that her dad and brother will,
but she doesn't like the answer. After their talk, she walks into her workshop and decides
to go through the boxes of her mother's stuff. She opens an album with family pictures first,
then a book on spiritualism. Inside she finds a note from her mom, asking to be forgiven because
their sacrifice will be worth it in the end. Annie puts the stuff back and turns off the light,
then she sees a ghostly image of her mother in the corner. She turns the light on and no one's there.
The next day, Charlie is in school and her teacher catches her playing with a toy instead
of answering the quiz. Suddenly, a bird hits into the classroom's window. Charlie seems
unbothered by the incident as she looks over to the teacher desk. Peter is bored in class,
starring at a classmates bottom, when he gets a text by his friend. He gets called out by the
teacher for not paying attention and the girl he seems to like, Bridget, gives him a disappointed
look. After class, Charlie is outside looking at the dead bird. She makes sure no one is
around then cuts off the birds head and puts it in her pocket. Someone is watching her do
it from across the street. Later, Annie sees that the door of her mother's room is open.
When she goes to close it, she sees a triangle on the floor. Annie asks Steve if he went into
the room. Then they are seen locking it and Steve takes the key. She knows she's being dramatic,
but her husband understands. Peter gives his dad the phone, saying the call is from the cemetery.
They tell him that his mother-in-law's grave had been desecrated. When Annie asks him about it,
he lies what the call was about. She tells him that she'll go see a movie, but actually goes
to a grief recovery meeting. Annie tells them about her mother dying, but also how her father
died when she was a baby. He starved himself to death because he had psychotic depression.
She also had an older brother with schizophrenia, who hanged himself when he was a teenager. Annie
continues speaking about her mother, who lived in her house before they put her into a hospice.
Before that they were estranged. When they started talking again at one point, her mother started
influencing her daughter and Annie felt guilty about it, as well as about her getting sick.
She thinks that she is blamed for everything. Meanwhile, Peter is getting stoned in his room
and gets a text from his friend about a party the next night. Someone is spying at him from outside.
The following day, Charlie is in her room working on a project when she sees an apparition in her
room. She goes outside with the dead bird's head in her hands. When she gets to a clearing,
she sees her grandmother surrounded by fire in the distance. Simultaneously, Annie gets an email
from the gallery that will be showing her work, asking for a peek at what she's working on. She
goes to prepare her piece in her workshop, when Peter comes in and asks her if he could borrow
one of the cars for the party. He tells her that he won't be drinking, which she barely believes,
then she tells him to ask his sister to come with him. He looks for her in her room, but she's not
there. Annie looks for Charlie and finds her in the clearing, yelling at her for being outside the
house barefoot and without a coat. She tells her mom that she wants her grandma. When they enter
the house, Annie tells her that she'll be going to a party with her brother. She doesn't want to go
because she doesn't know anyone. Annie tells Peter that now that she's coming with him, he really
can't drink. They drive to the party, both unhappy about their situation. They pass a pole on the
road that has the same marks seen on the grandma's necklace. As soon as they arrive at the party,
Peter spots Bridget there. Meanwhile, Annie is putting one of her miniature models together.
She looks at the miniature of her mom. At the party, Peter starts talking to Bridget and asks
her if she wants to smoke some weed with him. She tells him that the other room has a bong and they
go toward it. He notices Charlie following them and begs her to stay back. Peter tells her to
get some of the cake to get rid of her. Him and the girl join two other people in the next room.
Meanwhile Charlie is at the main room, eating some of the cake. She starts feeling bad. Bridget asks
him about his sister and tells him that she made a bad drawing of her. Charlie is sitting by herself,
working on her project, breathing heavily. She drinks some water. Peter is smoking weed as
she enters the room calling for him. He notices that she has difficulty breathing and she tells
him that her throat is closing up. She's having an allergic reaction from the nuts in the cake.
Peter carries her out to the car and speeds to the hospital. The girl can barely breathe. He
tells her that they're almost there. She opens the window and puts her head out, as Peter tries to
avoid hitting something on the road. Her head get ripped off by the pole. He stops the car and sits
there in complete shock. Peter can't even make himself look back. He starts crying, then drives
away. When he gets to the house, his parents hear him come in, but he doesn't say anything to them,
he just walks into his room and lies down. The next morning, he's lying awake and hears his
mom saying that she'll go out. In a moment, he hears her wails when she finds Charlie's body.
The mom is still screaming that night, crying for Charlie and wanting to die.
Peter hears her cries. They burry the girl the next day. During the wake, Peter stays isolated
from the others behind a glass wall and Annie is in her bed. Steve sends the people away then walks
into Charlie's bedroom. He flips through Charlie's notebook. Peter goes to bed and sees a red light
come on in the tree house. There, Annie can be seen sleeping in Charlie's spot, next to a heater.
Peter goes to school, but he just keeps thinking about the accident. Later, he's smoking weed
with his friends. He starts feeling bad and they notice him struggling. He says that he's
having some kind of reaction, like his throat is closing up. They try to calm him down and he asks
his friend to hold his hand. Later, Annie thinks about going to another grief recovery meeting,
but drives away. Suddenly, a woman flags her down. Joan remembers her from before,
but Annie tells her that she came there today for her daughter and not her mom. She tells her
that her son and grandson died 4 moths earlier and that going to the meetings has helped her a bit.
Joan gives Annie her phone number if she needs someone to talk to. They say goodbye. When Annie
comes back home, she sees Steve waiting for her. They go to bed together, but when he touches her
she leaves the bed. Steve tells her that it's too cold to sleep out there. Peter looks at the light
in the treehouse, but gets spooked by a presence in his room. He doesn't see anything there though.
Annie is in her workshop adding details to the miniature of Charlie's room, when she remembers
that she needs to call the gallery. She spills one of her paints on the paper with Joan's phone.
A bit later, she knocks on Joan's door. The woman greets her warmly and invites her in. Annie tells
her how she found Charlie's body in the car, then she takes a pill and finds something in her tea.
Joan asks Annie about her relationship with Peter. She tells her a story about a few
years ago when she almost killed herself and her children while sleepwalking. Peter woke up in the
same moment she did and started screaming. No one believed her that she was just sleepwalking. She
tells her that he always held that against her, no matter what she would say or do.
Some time later, Steve goes up to check on Annie and finds her making a miniature replica of the
accident. He's upset that she would make something like that, fearing that Peter might see it.
Annie says that it's a neutral view of the accident. Steve tells her that he came to
get her for dinner, but that he doesn't care if she comes down anymore. Later, they're eating and
Peter comments that the food is really good. Annie snarls at that. He asks her if there is something
she would like to say to him. She tries to avoid saying anything, but eventually flies into a rage.
Annie tells Peter that even though she knows how much he is hurting, that she can't forgive
him for what happened, especially because he can't own up to it. When she calms down,
Peter asks her why she doesn't own up to making Charlie go at the party in the first place even
though she didn't want to go. Steve stops the argument and Annie storms out. The two of them are
left sitting on the dining table. The son crying next to a father who doesn't know how to help him.
Annie tries to continue working the next day, but instead just goes to buy more art supplies.
When she walks out of the store, she runs into Joan. She tells her that she's really good because
something has happened to her. Joan doesn't know how to tell her, thinking that Annie would say
that she's crazy. Regardless, Joan still tells her about her experience. She went to a séance
where she met a spiritual medium. Even though she was skeptical when she went, her mind was
completely changed. The spiritual medium came to her apartment and conjured her grandson.
Annie doesn't believe her, but Joan tells her that it was very real. She convinces her to
come to her place with her, so she can show her. They're sitting on a table and she instructs Annie
what to do. She calls for her grandson and asks the spirit to slide the glass. Annie freaks out,
but Joan keeps going. She communicates with the spirit and it keeps moving the glass.
Suddenly, Annie feels it there too. Joan takes out a blackboard and it writes on it.
Annie asks her to stop because she can't handle it and Joan tells her that she understands. She gives
her instructions on what to do if she wants to try it for herself. Joan tells her to light a candle,
then to get something that belonged to Charlie as a link to her spirit. And when she's ready she
should read the words on the paper. Lastly, she tells her that all of the members in her family
have to be in the house when she does that. Annie can't sleep. She sees ants in her bed
coming in through the window. Annie follows the ants into Peter's room. She sees them crawling
all over him and his face. All of a sudden, Peter wakes her because she was sleepwalking.
She asks him if Charlie is there. And he asks her why she's scared of him. Annie blurts out
that she never wanted to be his mother, but was pressured into it by her mother. She even tried
to stop it by trying to have a miscarriage, but that she's happy that it didn't work.
Peter starts crying asking her why she tried to kill him. She says that she was actually trying to
save him and she bursts into flames. Suddenly, Annie wakes up in her bed. She goes into the
bathroom and says the words on the paper that Joan gave her. Annie goes into Peter's room and wakes
him, apologizing for everything and telling him to come downstairs to try something together. She
wakes Steve up too. They all gather in the dining room and she brings the table to them, grabs their
hands and tells them to think of Charlie. Steve gets mad at her, but she says that she's a medium
and that she can show them. Peter agrees to stay and after some convincing Steve does as well.
She concentrates and asks after Charlie. Peter hears something behind them. Annie puts their
hands on the glass and asks her to move it. Peter feels something strange and the glass moves.
Annie asks Charlie to draw something for her, as Peter gets scared. Steve closes the sketchbook,
but she shows him the drawing Charlie did before. Peter begins to cry and ssomething breaks in the
background. The candle flames explode up and the candle relights itself. Steve checks under
the table and hears the noises of difficult breathing coming from Annie. A child’s voice
comes out of her. Peter freaks out because Annie acts like she's possessed by Charlie, talking like
her and asking for her mom. They can't stop her doing it so Steve throws water over her,
making her come out of it. She doesn't remember what happened. Peter can't sleep that night.
Peter is in class when he sees some kind of apparition that no one else sees.
He looks at his reflection in the bookshelf and it's smiling at him. Suddenly, he hears a popping
sound that Charlie used to make. Later, Annie is working and gets a phone call from Steve,
telling her that Peter had called him, saying that there is a vengeful ghost after him. They argue
and he hangs up on her. The phone rings again, but Annie lets it go to voicemail. The voice on
the phone is a man from the gallery asking if they can help her in any way. She proceeds to destroy
the models in her workshop. Steve and Peter come home and notice a strange smell in the house.
Steve checks on Annie, asking about the smell and when he sees the models she tells him that
she didn't feel like looking at it anymore. Steve sees his headless miniature in the model
of their bedroom. He will sleep at the couch that night. Annie is at their room when she
hears something in Charlie's room. She goes inside and sees drawings being done in the sketchbook.
Meanwhile, Peter is sleeping and Charlie's popping sound wakes him up. He looks into the corner of
his room and he sees Charlie there. He calls for her, but her head falls off and turns into a ball.
Maxie is at his door growling, when suddenly someone grabs him from behind and starts pulling
his head off. The doors slams in Maxie's face then Annie shows up in Peter's room. He asks her why
she was pulling his head off. She says that she wasn't doing it and that he shouldn't tell his
father. Annie says that she knows what's going on and she's the only one that can stop it. Next, she
goes back to Charlie's room and sees the drawings of Peter in the sketchbook. Annie tries to burn
it, but when she throws it in the fireplace, her arm also catches on fire. Reacting quickly, she
pulls the book out and her arm stops burning too. The following day, Annie goes back to see Joan.
When she gets there, the woman doesn't answer, but her apartment shows some evidence that she might
have been contacting Charlie. Meanwhile, Peter is at school and hears his name being called out.
Joan is on the other side of the street looking at him and telling him to get out.
Annie goes back home and finds another book in her mother's box with the same symbol as her necklace.
Then she finds a book on invocations and sees a paragraph her mother has underlined.
It is about the invocation of a spirit that needs a male host. She goes through another
family album and sees pictures of Joan inside, as well as pictures of her mother doing certain
rituals. In the meantime, Peter sees another light apparition at school guiding him to a door.
There is someone behind it gesturing him to come in. Steve wants to send an email to a
psychiatrist about his wife, but gets one from the cemetery about the damages to the grave.
Simultaneously, Annie opens the door to the attic and a terrible smell comes out. She goes up,
when she suddenly finds the body of her mother and the same symbol written on the wall. Peter
is in school, having trouble focusing, because he keeps hearing the popping sound all over.
He hears it behind him, then in front. Suddenly, his body looks as if it is possessed by something
to dismay of his teacher and classmates. He bangs his head on the table once, then once more
breaking his nose and utterly panicking about what had just happened. There is no one in the house to
pick up the phone when Peter's school rings. Steve gets the call at work and goes to pick up Peter.
Annie waits for them at home and helps Steve drag him out of the car, as he tells her what
happened. When they put him to bed, she begs Steve to check if the body is upstairs. She thinks it's
her mother, but the head is missing. He goes to check. When he comes back down he asks her why
she didn't call the police, but Annie starts telling him about Joan and everything that she
thinks her mother was involved in. Steve, however, thinks that she was the one that dug up the body.
She keeps telling him that they brought some kind of curse on them when they summoned Charlie and
that Peter is in danger. Annie tells him about the book, but explains how she thinks she's linked to
it somehow. Yet if they don't destroy it, Peter will die. They come down the stairs as she asks
him to trust her and to throw the sketchbook in the fire. She begs him to do it and tells him
that he's the love of his life as if she is saying goodbye. Steve won't do it because he
thinks that she's sick. Annie grabs the sketchbook and throws it in the fire. He immediately bursts
out in flames. The light apparition flows over Annie and she turns into someone else.
That night, Peter wakes up in his bed and sees the light in the treehouse. He calls after his
parents, but no one replies. When he gets up d, he sees the lights turn on outside and something
crawls behind him. Peter walks out of his room into the dark house, when he hears something.
He slams his grandma's door shut and goes down in the hallway passing a miniature of their house.
Peter finds his father's body in the living room. There's a noise behind him and Annie is lurking
from the celling. He turns in the other direction and sees a naked person in the shadows. Suddenly,
Annie starts chasing after him up stairs.He hides in the attic, begs her to stop and apologizes.
She's pounding at the attic door and suddenly stops. Peter calls out to her, then looks around
the attic and finds that the place is set up for some sort of ritual with him the center of it.
He thinks that he's dreaming and tries to wake himself up. Peter looks up and sees
his mother cutting her head off. Then sees more naked old people. He jumps out of the window.
The sound of a head falling can be heard from the attic. The light apparition enters
Peter and he wakes. He sees Annie's headless body float to the treehouse. Peter makes the
popping sound that Charlie used to make and follows his mother towards the treehouse,
noticing the naked onlookers in the bushes. When he gets to the treehouse, there are many other
people there. He sees his sister's head mounted on a manikin, with everyone, including his mother's
and grandmother's body bowing to her. Joan walks up to him, putting a crown on him. She tells him,
or rather Charlie, that she's alright now. Joan tells her that she is Paimon, one of the
kings of hell. They have summoned him from the depths of hell and give themselves over to him.