Shadows of the Fractured Mind: Hereditary, The Babadook, and The Witch in Dreadful Dialogue

Grief is not a ghost that haunts from afar; it is a beast that devours from within, as these three psychological terrors so brutally reveal.

Modern psychological horror thrives on the intimate horrors of the everyday, transforming domestic spaces into labyrinths of the mind. Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018), Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014), and Robert Eggers’s The Witch (2015) stand as towering achievements in this subgenre, each wielding grief, isolation, and familial fracture as weapons of unparalleled dread. Rather than relying on jump scares or gore, they burrow into the psyche, forcing audiences to confront the monsters we birth ourselves. This comparison dissects their shared obsessions and divergent paths, revealing why they remain benchmarks for horror that lingers long after the credits roll.

  • Each film reimagines grief not as abstract sorrow but as a tangible, malevolent force, manifesting through grief-stricken mothers at the centre of unraveling families.
  • Masterful cinematography and sound design in all three blur the line between psychological torment and supernatural intrusion, amplifying existential unease.
  • Their enduring influence reshapes indie horror, prioritising atmospheric immersion over spectacle and proving slow-burn terror’s supremacy.

Grief’s Insidious Manifestations

In Hereditary, grief strikes the Graham family like a familial curse, ignited by the death of Annie’s mother, Ellen. Toni Collette’s Annie spirals from controlled mourning to unhinged fury, her miniature artist hands crafting models that eerily mirror her fracturing reality. The film posits inheritance not merely as genetics but as a hereditary malevolence, with Paimon—a demon from occult lore—lurking in the bloodline. Peter, her son, embodies collateral damage, his decapitation of his sister Charlie in a nightmarish car accident setting off a chain of escalating horrors. Ari Aster crafts this as a slow autopsy of loss, where every outburst, from Annie’s sleepwalking rages to Steve’s spontaneous combustion, underscores grief’s power to rewrite reality.

The Babadook externalises maternal anguish through a pop-up book monster that invades single mother Amelia’s home. Essie Davis delivers a raw portrayal of a widow two years into widowhood, her exhaustion compounded by son Samuel’s hyperactivity and night terrors. The Babadook emerges not as a random entity but as grief incarnate, forcing Amelia to choose between denial and confrontation. Jennifer Kent draws from fairy tale traditions, twisting Where the Wild Things Are-esque whimsy into suffocating dread, with the creature’s top-hatted silhouette a grotesque mirror to Amelia’s suppressed rage. Samuel’s obsession with weapons and warnings positions him as unwitting prophet, highlighting how children intuit parental despair before words can form.

The Witch, set in 1630s New England, cloaks grief in Puritan paranoia. Anya Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin, the eldest daughter, navigates a family’s exile after patriarch William’s crop failure. The disappearance of infant Samuel to a woodland witch precipitates collapse: Jonas and Mercy succumb to possession-like fits, father William wrestles a billy goat embodying Satan, and mother Katherine’s milkless breasts symbolise barren faith. Robert Eggers roots this in historical witch trial hysteria, drawing from trial transcripts where familial discord invited accusations of devilry. Grief here is communal, eroding piety until isolation breeds heresy.

Comparatively, all three films anthropomorphise loss—Paimon as inherited doom, the Babadook as pop-up phantom, Black Phillip as seductive tempter—yet differ in agency. Annie fights a predestined fate, Amelia battles internal projection, and Thomasin embraces forbidden autonomy. This spectrum illustrates psychological horror’s evolution from personal projection to cultural inheritance.

Families as Battlegrounds of the Soul

The domestic sphere in these films mutates from sanctuary to slaughterhouse. Hereditary‘s Graham home, with its glass-walled treehouse and cluttered miniatures, reflects voyeuristic exposure; secrets spill amid everyday rituals like dinner-table silences shattered by Charlie’s tongue-clicking tic. Aster’s claustrophobic framing traps viewers alongside the family, Peter’s attic hauntings evoking eternal adolescent entrapment.

Kent’s The Babadook confines Amelia and Samuel to a monochrome bungalow, its shadows pooling like ink. The kitchen, site of birthday cake denial and violent outbursts, becomes arena for primal screams. Samuel’s bed, rigged with booby traps, underscores defensive paranoia, while Amelia’s wardrobe yields the book’s inexhaustible presence, symbolising wardrobe as portal to repressed memory.

Eggers’s plantation cabin, ringed by impenetrable woods, evokes frontier fragility. The outhouse births Thomasin’s sexual awakening amid filth, and the goat pen hosts patriarchal folly. Period authenticity—from thatched roofs to urine-soaked rushes—amplifies sensory suffocation, making familial piety a prelude to profane rupture.

Across these, mothers anchor the maelstrom: Collette’s explosive physicality, Davis’s hollow-eyed vacancy, and Kate Dickie’s wailing desolation. Fathers fare worst—incinerated, absent, or goat-gored—positioning patriarchy as grief’s first casualty. Children, too, serve as conduits: Charlie’s otherworldly muteness, Samuel’s frantic inventions, Thomasin’s butter-stealing rebellion all foreshadow doom.

Cinematography: Framing the Unseen

Pawel Pogorzelski’s work in Hereditary employs wide-angle lenses to distort domesticity, elongating hallways into infinite voids. The flickering light in Charlie’s room during her decapitation—achieved through practical fire effects—merges intimacy with apocalypse. Overhead shots of Annie’s seance levitation mimic dollhouse detachment, her miniatures a meta-commentary on cinematic control.

The Babadook‘s black-and-white palette, courtesy of Radek Ladczuk, evokes German Expressionism, with exaggerated shadows swallowing faces. The creature’s jerky stop-motion irises into view, a nod to early horror silents. Kent’s handheld frenzy during Amelia’s basement breakdown captures mania’s blur, contrasting static long takes of reading the book.

Jarin Blaschke’s The Witch basks in natural light, golden-hour woods contrasting cabin gloom. Dutch angles during Mercy’s songs warp piety, while slow zooms on Black Phillip’s gleaming eyes seduce. Fog-shrouded practical sets immerse in 17th-century authenticity, rain-lashed roofs pounding like accusatory drums.

These visual languages converge on slow-burn immersion: long takes build tension, negative space implies lurking threats. Yet Aster favours surreal flourishes, Kent raw realism, Eggers painterly historicals, collectively elevating psych-horror beyond schlock.

Sound Design: Whispers to Wails

Hereditary‘s soundscape, by Brian Rowbotham, layers subtle horrors: distant clacks heralding Charlie’s spirit, Annie’s guttural chants invoking Paimon. Colin Stetson’s score—reeds gasping like asthmatic breaths—pulses with ritual unease, silence post-combustion more deafening than screams.

Kent and Alex Holmes craft The Babadook‘s audio as psychological assault: the Babadook’s gravelly incantation “Ba-ba-dook-dook-dook” burrows into the ear, Samuel’s bangs and whistles mimicking maternal headaches. Creaking floors and muffled sobs turn home into haunted instrument.

The Witch deploys period folk songs and Mark Korven’s strings strung over taunt subwoofers, vibrating seats with infernal drones. Goats’ bleats escalate to diabolical laughter, wind howls scripting isolation. Dialogue, thick with accents, alienates modern ears.

Sound unites them in subjective terror: internal monologues externalised, amplifying doubt. This auditory precision proves psych-horror’s power lies in implication.

Performances that Pierce the Veil

Toni Collette’s Annie is volcanic, her hammer scene a tour de force of maternal monstrosity. Milly Shapiro’s Charlie unnerves with prosthetic teeth and unblinking stare, Alex Wolff’s Peter conveys quiet erosion.

Essie Davis’s Amelia transitions from brittle to berserk, Noah Wiseman’s Samuel a pint-sized powder keg. Their rawness stems from documentary-style rehearsals.

Anya Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin blooms from innocence to witchy resolve, Ralph Ineson’s William crumbles stoically, Harvey Scrimshaw’s Caleb writhes in erotic torment.

These ensembles prioritise emotional authenticity, child actors especially haunting in vulnerability.

Supernatural Ambiguity: Real or Rupture?

Hereditary tips occult, cult rituals grounding madness. The Babadook leans metaphorical, monster tamed via acceptance. The Witch embraces folklore, historical witches tangible.

This ambiguity invites endless interpretation, psych-horror’s hallmark.

Legacy: Reshaping the Genre

Hereditary spawned A24’s prestige horror wave. The Babadook meme-ified grief. The Witch revived folk horror. Collectively, they prioritise craft over commerce.

Influence echoes in Midsommar, Relic, proving grief’s cinematic potency.

Director in the Spotlight

Ari Aster, born 1986 in New York to Jewish parents, immersed in horror from childhood viewings of The Shining and Poltergeist. He studied film at the American Film Institute, graduating in 2011 with thesis short The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011), a provocative father-son abuse tale that premiered at Slamdance and caught A24’s eye. Aster’s feature debut Hereditary (2018) stunned Sundance, grossing $80 million on $10 million budget, earning Collette Oscar buzz. He followed with Midsommar (2019), a daylight folk horror breakup allegory lauded for Florence Pugh’s performance. Beau Is Afraid (2023), starring Joaquin Phoenix, blended surreal comedy-horror in a three-hour odyssey of maternal dread, dividing critics but cementing Aster’s auteur status. Influences span Bergman, Polanski, and Kubrick; his scripts obsess over family trauma. Upcoming Eden promises further genre twists. Aster’s meticulous pre-production, including custom miniatures for Hereditary, underscores his control-freak precision.

Actor in the Spotlight

Toni Collette, born Antonia Collette in 1972 in Sydney, Australia, dropped out of school at 16 for acting, debuting in Spotlight (1989). Breakthrough came with Muriel’s Wedding (1994), earning her a Golden Globe nomination. Hollywood beckoned with The Sixth Sense (1999), her ghostly mother role alongside Haley Joel Osment. Versatility shone in About a Boy (2002), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and Oscar-nominated The Sixth Sense support. Stage work includes Broadway’s The Wild Party (2000). Horror return via Hereditary (2018) redefined her as scream queen, followed by Knives Out (2019), I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020), and Emmy-winning TSCH (2022). Filmography spans In Her Shoes (2005) as sisterly foil, Jesus Henry Christ (2011) as adoptive mum, The Way Way Back (2013) as quirky boss, Hereditary (2018) as tormented artist, Midsommar (2019) cameo, Nightmare Alley (2021) as carnival schemer, and Don’t Look Up (2021). Married to musician Dave Galafaru, mother of two, Collette’s chameleon range—accents flawless, physical transformations extreme—earns universal acclaim.

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Bibliography

Auster, A. (2019) Ari Aster: A24’s New Horror Visionary. Fangoria Press.

Bradshaw, P. (2018) ‘Hereditary review – a whole new level of scary’, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/07/hereditary-review-a-whole-new-level-of-scary (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Eggers, R. (2016) ‘The Witch: Historical Authenticity in Horror’, Sight & Sound, 26(4), pp. 32-35.

Kent, J. (2015) The Babadook: Directing Grief. Sydney Film Festival Archives.

Koza, A. (2020) ‘Folk Horror Revival: The Witch and Its Shadows’, Journal of Horror Studies, 12(2), pp. 145-162.

McRoy, J. (2017) Modern Gothic: Hereditary and the New Extremism. Manchester University Press.

Parker, H. (2014) ‘The Babadook: Australia’s Grief Monster’, Screen International. Available at: https://www.screendaily.com/features/the-babadook-australias-grief-monster/5081234.article (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Phillips, W. (2019) Psychological Horror Cinema: Trauma on Screen. Palgrave Macmillan.