If Hereditary shattered your sense of family and reality, these psychological terrors will fracture it further—prepare for unrelenting dread.

Hereditary arrived in 2018 like a thunderclap in the quiet storm of modern horror, blending raw familial grief with insidious supernatural forces. Ari Aster’s debut feature redefined psychological horror by burrowing into the psyche’s darkest corners, leaving audiences haunted long after the credits rolled. For those still reeling from its grip, a selection of kindred films awaits, each echoing its themes of trauma, loss, and the blurring line between madness and the otherworldly. These recommendations channel Hereditary’s slow-burn intensity, unflinching emotional depth, and masterful unease, offering fresh nightmares for the discerning viewer.

  • Discover eight standout psychological horrors that capture Hereditary’s essence of grief-stricken families and creeping supernatural horror.
  • Unpack thematic parallels, stylistic innovations, and cultural impacts through detailed scene analyses and historical context.
  • Spotlight Ari Aster’s visionary direction and Toni Collette’s powerhouse performance, with comprehensive biographies and filmographies.

Hereditary’s Enduring Haunt: A Blueprint for Psychic Dismantling

Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018) centres on the Graham family, unraveling after the death of their secretive grandmother. Annie Graham, portrayed with ferocious intensity by Toni Collette, grapples with her mother’s legacy while her son Peter faces horrifying visions. The film’s power lies in its domestic realism clashing against occult rituals, where everyday spaces like the family home become prisons of inherited doom. Aster crafts tension through long takes and muted palettes, making the audience complicit in the mounting dread.

Key to its resonance is the exploration of inherited trauma. The Graham lineage carries a matriarchal curse, symbolised by eerie miniatures that foreshadow decapitations and possessions. This motif underscores how personal loss amplifies generational sins, a theme rooted in folklore traditions of familial hauntings seen in earlier works like The Amityville Horror (1979). Hereditary elevates this by focusing on psychological realism; Annie’s sleepwalking outbursts feel authentically unhinged, drawn from real bereavement studies where grief manifests somatically.

Sound design amplifies the film’s invasiveness, with Tobe Hooper-inspired creaks and sudden clatters punctuating silence. Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski’s use of shallow depth of field isolates characters, mirroring their emotional isolation. These elements set a high bar for successors, demanding not just scares but profound emotional excavation.

Midsommar: Aster’s Daylight Descent into Cultic Madness

Ari Aster followed Hereditary with Midsommar (2019), transposing familial rupture to a sun-drenched Swedish commune. Dani’s grief over her sister’s suicide propels her into a relationship’s toxic end and a pagan festival masking ritual sacrifice. Florence Pugh’s raw portrayal of Dani’s breakdown rivals Collette’s, evolving from victim to enthralled participant in a floral hellscape.

The film’s brilliance stems from subverting horror conventions: terror blooms in broad daylight amid vibrant tapestries and folk dances. Aster draws from Scandinavian midsummer rites, blending ethnography with psychological horror to critique American individualism against communal fanaticism. A pivotal dinner scene, where elders smash their teeth in rhythmic agony, symbolises the devouring of selfhood, echoing Hereditary’s decapitation motif through bodily violation.

Production faced challenges with authentic set construction in Hungary, standing in for Sweden, where Aster insisted on practical effects for bear suits and cliff plunges. The result influenced a wave of folk horror revivals, cementing Aster’s reputation for weaponising beauty against the psyche.

The Babadook: Grief’s Pop-Up Book Predator

Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014) predates Hereditary but shares its maternal anguish core. Single mother Amelia and son Samuel confront a storybook monster embodying suppressed sorrow after her husband’s death. Essie Davis delivers a tour-de-force as Amelia, her descent into rage mirroring Annie Graham’s explosive therapy sessions.

The Babadook emerges as grief’s avatar, popping from shadows with top-hat menace, its design inspired by German Expressionist silhouettes. Kent, a protégé of Lars von Trier, employs claustrophobic framing in their decaying home, where basement confinement evokes Freudian repression bursting forth. A cellar confrontation, with Amelia wielding a hammer, parallels Hereditary’s tool-shed savagery, questioning if the monster is external or internal projection.

Australian funding struggles honed its lean aesthetic, grossing millions worldwide and sparking mental health discourse. Its legacy persists in how it humanises parental breakdown, influencing Hereditary’s unflinching family implosions.

The Witch: Puritan Paranoia in the New World Woods

Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) immerses in 1630s New England, where a banished family’s piety crumbles amid goat-man Black Phillip’s temptations. Anya Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin embodies adolescent awakening against patriarchal control, her arc prefiguring Hereditary’s female-led reckonings.

Eggers, obsessed with historical accuracy, sourced dialogue from period diaries, crafting a slow erosion of faith. The woodland’s foggy compositions and Hawthorne-inspired witch lore build dread, culminating in a butter-churning possession scene rife with erotic undertones. Like Hereditary, it probes religious inheritance as curse, with the father’s sermons masking demonic pacts.

Low-budget ingenuity, shot in Ontario’s chill, propelled Eggers to auteur status, its A24 release mirroring Hereditary’s indie breakthrough.

Saint Maud: Faith’s Feverish Fracture

Rose Glass’ Saint Maud (2019) tracks a nurse’s masochistic devotion to saving her dying patient’s soul, blurring sanctity and insanity. Morfydd Clark’s dual-role performance channels Collette’s possession physicality, her self-flagellation evoking Graham family seances.

Glass layers Catholic iconography with bodily horror, nail-piercing close-ups symbolising stigmata gone awry. The coastal setting’s grey pallor heightens isolation, drawing from Repulsion (1965) in its female psyche unraveling. Maud’s final dance of flames rivals Hereditary’s attic inferno for visceral catharsis.

Debuting amid pandemic delays, it affirms British horror’s psychological prowess.

Relic: Dementia as Devouring Inheritance

Natalie Erika James’ Relic (2020) confines a family to a mouldering house where grandmother Edna succumbs to a fungal affliction mirroring dementia’s creep. Robyn Nevin’s subtle horror grounds the supernatural, akin to Collette’s restrained fury.

Australian Gothic influences abound, with labyrinthine house design symbolising memory’s decay. A mould-trail chase echoes Hereditary’s clicking tongues, positing inheritance as infection. James’ feature debut tackles ageing taboos head-on.

Practical Nightmares: Effects That Linger in the Mind

Psychological horrors like Hereditary prioritise practical effects for tactile terror. Aster’s team crafted the headless body via animatronics, its unnatural twitches imprinting viscerally. Midsommar’s leg flaying used silicone prosthetics, blood pumps ensuring realism without CGI gloss.

The Babadook’s shadow puppetry relied on handmade pop-ups, enhancing handmade menace. The Witch’s Black Phillip employed a real goat with vocal overlays, grounding folklore. These choices amplify psychological investment, as audiences sense authenticity amid artifice.

Saint Maud’s burns and Relic’s fungal growths, achieved through makeup and practical sets, underscore the subgenre’s commitment to embodied dread over digital shortcuts.

Echoes in Culture: Legacy and Evolutions

These films collectively revitalise psychological horror post-millennium, shifting from jump scares to existential unease. Hereditary’s box-office success spawned A24’s prestige horror wave, influencing streaming originals. Themes of matrilineal curses challenge patriarchal narratives, resonating in #MeToo era reckonings.

Global echoes appear in Japanese Ringu (1998) lineages, while production tales—like Aster’s script originating from a short film—highlight indie perseverance against studio scepticism.

Director in the Spotlight

Ari Aster, born July 31, 1986, in New York City to a Jewish family with roots in Poland and Ukraine, grew up immersed in horror classics. His fascination began with The Shining (1980), shaping his command of domestic dread. After studying film at Santa Fe University, he honed craft via short films like The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011), a provocative incest tale that premiered at Slamdance and caught A24’s eye.

Aster’s feature debut Hereditary (2018) blended personal loss—channelled from family deaths—with occult mythology, earning Collette an Oscar nod and critical acclaim. Midsommar (2019), his daylight nightmare, expanded folk horror, grossing $48 million on a $9 million budget despite mixed reception. Beau Is Afraid (2023), starring Joaquin Phoenix, stretched to epic surrealism, exploring maternal tyranny over three hours.

Upcoming projects include Eden, a Western horror, and TV’s Demons. Influences span Bergman, Polanski, and Kubrick; Aster’s meticulous prep, including historical research, defines his oeuvre. Awards include Gotham nods; he champions practical effects, resisting Hollywood’s CGI tide.

Filmography highlights: The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011, short: familial abuse taboo); Munchausen (2013, short: delusional disorder); Hereditary (2018: grief horror pinnacle); Midsommar (2019: cult trauma); Beau Is Afraid (2023: odyssey of fear). His work dissects American anxieties through intimate lenses.

Actor in the Spotlight

Toni Collette, born November 1, 1972, in Sydney, Australia, rose from ballet dreams to acting via The Boys (1991). Nominated for an Oscar at 22 for Muriel’s Wedding

(1994), her comedic pathos pivoted to drama in The Sixth Sense (1999), earning another nod as the ghostly mother.

Versatility shines in Hereditary (2018), where her unhinged Annie fused physical contortions with raw vulnerability, dubbed “performance of the decade” by critics. Post-Oscar buzz for The Staircase miniseries (2022), she juggles horror like Krampus (2015) with prestige in Hereditary‘s successor vein.

Awards: Emmy for United States of Tara (2010), Golden Globe noms; theatre roots in Wild Party (2000). Activism includes women’s rights; married since 2003, two children.

Filmography highlights: Muriel’s Wedding (1994: breakout comedy); The Sixth Sense (1999: supernatural maternal); About a Boy (2002: heartfelt dramedy); Little Miss Sunshine (2006: dysfunctional family); The Way Way Back (2013: coming-of-age mentor); Hereditary (2018: horror tour-de-force); Knives Out (2019: ensemble mystery); I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020: surreal psychological); Nightmare Alley (2021: noir femme fatale); Tár (2022: conductor downfall).

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Bibliography

Aldana, E. (2020) Folk Horror Revival: Urban Wyrd. Ghost Box Records.

Barber, N. (2019) ‘Ari Aster: The Family Curse’, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/01/ari-aster-midsommar-interview (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Collings, J. (2018) A24: The Indie Studio Revolution. McFarland.

Jones, A. (2021) Grief in Contemporary Horror Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan.

Kent, J. (2015) ‘Directing The Babadook: An Interview’, Sight & Sound, British Film Institute. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound/interviews/jennifer-kent-babadook (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Newman, K. (2015) nightmare movies: Horror on the Screen and Off. Bloomsbury Academic.

Paul, W. (2022) ‘Psychological Horror and Maternal Trauma’, Journal of Film and Media Studies, 15(2), pp. 45-67.

Rodgers, J. (2020) A24 Screenplays: Hereditary. Newmarket Press.