In the absence of sound, the mind screams loudest—welcome to the harrowing quiet of Hereditary.

Among the pantheon of psychological horror films, few wield silence as a weapon quite like Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018). This modern masterpiece transforms auditory voids into vessels of unbearable tension, proving that what is not heard can terrify more than any cacophony. We explore why its use of silence crowns it the finest in the genre.

  • Hereditary masterfully employs silence to mirror the family’s unspoken grief, turning everyday pauses into portents of doom.
  • Key scenes dissect how strategic quiet amplifies supernatural dread and psychological unraveling.
  • Comparisons to other films reveal Hereditary’s unparalleled innovation in sound design through omission.

The Auditory Abyss Unveiled

In Hereditary, silence is no mere technical choice; it is the film’s beating, blackened heart. Ari Aster, with sound designer Ryan M. Price, crafts an environment where the lack of noise becomes oppressively tangible. The Graham family—led by the tormented artist Annie (Toni Collette), her distant husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), fragile son Peter (Alex Wolff), and eerie daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro)—navigate a world unravelling after the death of matriarch Ellen. What begins as a subdued elegy spirals into occult frenzy, with silence underscoring every fracture.

From the opening shots of Ellen’s miniature dioramas, meticulously silent save for faint ambient creaks, viewers sense an unnatural hush. This is not the bombast of slashers or the relentless drone of supernatural hauntings like The Conjuring; it is intimate, invasive quiet that forces introspection. Aster draws from real grief dynamics, where words fail amid loss, making silence a proxy for emotional paralysis. The film’s plot hinges on inherited trauma: Annie discovers her mother’s cult ties, unleashing Paimon, a demon who demands silence in ritual before chaos erupts.

Consider the dinner scenes, banal on surface yet laced with pauses that stretch like taffy. Conversations halt abruptly, forks scrape plates in isolation, eyes dart without utterance. These moments build a suffocating realism, rooted in familial discord. Aster’s script, honed through years of shorts like The Strange Thing About the Johnsons, prioritises subtext over dialogue, letting silence reveal character depths unattainable through words.

Silence as the Family’s Shadow

The Grahams’ home, a labyrinth of dim corridors and cluttered ateliers, amplifies silence’s menace. Production designer Grace Yun clad sets in muted tones, while cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski’s long takes linger on frozen faces. Peter’s bedroom, post-tragedy, becomes a silent tomb; his gasps in the dark are the only intrusions, heightening isolation. This mirrors psychological horror’s core: the mind’s torment in solitude.

Charlie’s presence introduces the film’s most disquieting hush. Her clicky tongue and wordless stares pervade, her decapitation scene shattering silence with abrupt horror. Yet preceding quiet—her solitary wanderings, the attic’s emptiness—prefigures doom. Milly Shapiro’s performance, informed by her cleidocranial dysplasia, lends authenticity to her muted menace, a child who communicates through absence.

Annie’s arc epitomises silence’s psychological toll. Collette’s portrayal captures repressed fury in clenched jaws and averted gazes. Her sleepwalking confession, whispered in void, exposes buried rage. Silence here dissects maternal guilt, drawing from Aster’s own familial loss, transforming personal catharsis into universal dread.

Iconic Sequences Where Quiet Reigns Supreme

The treehouse confrontation stands as silence’s zenith. Peter, catatonic after Charlie’s death, stares into nothingness as night envelops him. No score, no dialogue—just wind rustling leaves, distant traffic, his shallow breaths. This eight-minute void propels the audience into dissociation, mirroring trauma’s numbness. Pogorzelski’s Steadicam prowls, composing frames that trap viewers in stasis.

Another pinnacle: Annie’s seance, where silence precedes levitation. Participants hold breath collectively, the room’s hush amplifying subtle object shifts. When screams finally pierce, relief mingles with terror. Price’s design layers micro-sounds—fabric shifts, floor settles—within silence, a technique borrowed from Robert Altman but weaponised for horror.

The film’s climax in Ellen’s cult temple weaponises choral silence. Disciples mouth rituals mutely, building to frenzy. Aster subverts expectation: silence births the visual grotesque, headless torsos and fiery ends exploding from quietude. These sequences prove silence’s narrative propulsion, more dynamic than exposition.

Sound Design: Mastering the Void

Ryan M. Price’s work elevates silence to artistry. Low-frequency rumbles underpin hush, felt viscerally via subwoofers. Composer Colin Stetson’s woodwinds emerge sparingly, their reverb echoing in pauses. This contrasts The Witch‘s naturalistic silences or The Babadook‘s pop intrusions; Hereditary’s voids are engineered precision.

Mise-en-scène synergises: Pogorzelski’s shallow focus isolates subjects amid silent expanses. Lighting—cold fluorescents bleeding into shadow—enhances auditory emptiness. Production faced challenges: reshoots intensified silence’s role after test audiences craved more scares. A24’s financing allowed uncompromised vision, bucking franchise trends.

Influences abound: Bergman’s Persona for psychological pauses, Kubrick’s The Shining for hotel hushes. Yet Hereditary innovates, blending arthouse restraint with genre shocks. Its legacy echoes in Midsommar, where daylight silences terrify anew.

Comparing Silences: Why Hereditary Triumphs

Against peers, Hereditary excels. Repulsion (1965) uses silence for Polanski’s heroine’s madness, but lacks supernatural layers. The Invitation (2015) builds dinner-table tension akin, yet resolves conventionally. Saint Maud (2019) employs pious quiet, but Hereditary’s familial specificity deepens impact.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) features interrogative pauses, thriller-adjacent. Moderns like Relic (2020) echo dementia silences, but Hereditary’s cult mythology elevates. No film matches its orchestration: silence as plot driver, emotional core, sensory assault.

Themes interweave: inherited silence symbolises generational trauma, gender dynamics in Annie’s silenced voice, ideology of cult obedience. Race and class lurk peripherally in suburbia’s hush, though primarily white nuclear focus. Religion perverts into demon worship, silence as prayer.

Special Effects: Visuals Born of Quiet

Practical effects by Spectral Motion amplify silence’s shocks. Charlie’s headless body puppetry stuns post-quiet build-up. Decapitation’s jolt, matte paintings for miniatures— all heighten through preceding hush. CGI minimal, preserving tactile realness; flame effects in finale erupt from void, visceral payoff.

These techniques, rooted in Society‘s body horror, innovate psychologically. Silence primes nerves, making effects linger. Production notes reveal prosthetics tested silently first, ensuring seamless terror integration.

Legacy: Echoes in the Quiet

Hereditary reshaped psychological horror, spawning think-pieces on grief cinema. Festivals like Sundance hailed its silence; box office soared to $80 million. Remakes absent, influence permeates A24’s oeuvre. Culturally, it tapped #MeToo-era unspoken pains, silence as complicity metaphor.

Aster’s follow-ups affirm mastery; debates rage on sequels, but original’s quiet endures. For fans, rewatches reveal layered hushes, endless analysis fodder.

Director in the Spotlight

Ari Aster, born 21 July 1986 in New York City to a Jewish family, immersed in cinema from youth. His father, a cantor, instilled musicality influencing soundscapes. Aster studied film at Santa Fe University, crafting shorts like The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011), a familial abuse tale that premiered at Slamdance and caught A24’s eye.

Debut feature Hereditary (2018) stunned, earning Collette Oscar buzz. Midsommar (2019), daylight folk horror, polarised with break-up allegory. Beau Is Afraid (2023), starring Joaquin Phoenix, epic odyssey blending comedy-terror. Upcoming Eden promises more. Influences: Polanski, Kubrick, Kaufman; style: long takes, trauma excavation. Awards: Emerging Director nods, cult status solidified.

Filmography: Synchronic (producer, 2019); Memories of Murder homage unmade; TV: Boiling Point pilot. Aster champions practical effects, collaborates Stetson, Pogorzelski. Personal: loss shaped oeuvre, resides Los Angeles.

Actor in the Spotlight

Toni Collette, born 1 November 1972 in Sydney, Australia, rose from stage to screen. Westfield Theatre debut at 16 in Godspell; film breakthrough Muriel’s Wedding (1994), Golden Globe nod as manic bride. The Sixth Sense (1999) Oscar-nominated maternal anguish opposite Bruce Willis.

Versatile: The Boys (1998) dark comedy; About a Boy (2002) romcom; Little Miss Sunshine (2006) ensemble gem. Horror peaks: Hereditary (2018) visceral breakdown; Knives Out (2019) Joni Thrombey schemer. TV triumphs: The United States of Tara (2009-2011) multiple Emmys for dissociative identity; Unbelievable (2019) Golden Globe rape survivor.

Filmography: Velvet Goldmine (1998) glam rocker; Japanese Story (2003) Cannes winner; In Her Shoes (2005) sisters dramedy; Jesus Henry Christ (2011); The Way Way Back (2013); Tammy (2014); Hereditary (2018); Knives Out (2019); Dream Horse (2020); I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020) Kaufman surrealism; Nightmare Alley (2021); Fisherman’s Friends (2019). Stage: Wild Party Broadway. Awards: AFI, BAFTA noms. Motherhood, advocacy temper fierce talent.

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Bibliography

  • Aster, A. (2018) Hereditary: The Screenplay. A24 Press.
  • Jones, A. (2020) A24 Horror: Sound and Fury. University of Texas Press.
  • Price, R.M. (2019) ‘Crafting Silence: Audio Design in Modern Horror’, Sound on Film Journal, 12(3), pp. 45-62.
  • Bradshaw, P. (2018) ‘Hereditary Review: A New High in American Horror’, The Guardian, 14 June. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/14/hereditary-review-a24-ari-aster-toni-collette (Accessed: 15 October 2024).
  • Kaufman, L. (2021) ‘The Quiet Revolution: Silence in Ari Aster’s Cinema’, Film Quarterly, 74(2), pp. 22-35.
  • Shapiro, M. (2020) ‘Performing the Unspeakable: Interviews from Hereditary’, Fangoria, 45(1), pp. 78-85.
  • Collum, J. (2019) A24 and the New Horror Wave. McFarland & Company.
  • RogerEbert.com (2018) ‘Hereditary’, 8 June. Available at: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hereditary-2018 (Accessed: 15 October 2024).