When ancient evils pass through bloodlines, the screams of one generation awaken the nightmares of the next.

Two films stand as towering achievements in possession horror, bridging five decades of cinematic terror: William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) and Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018). Both dissect the harrowing notion of generational possession, where demonic forces latch onto family legacies, turning homes into hellscapes. This comparison unearths their shared obsessions with inheritance, faith, and familial collapse, revealing how these masterpieces evolve the subgenre.

  • The Exorcist establishes possession as a battle of faith against primordial evil, while Hereditary reframes it as inescapable familial trauma manifesting through subtle, psychological dread.
  • Both centre tormented mothers confronting otherworldly inheritance, yet diverge in their rituals, effects, and ultimate reckonings with destiny.
  • Through innovative techniques in sound, visuals, and performance, these films cement their legacies, influencing waves of horror from supernatural showdowns to slow-burn domestic horrors.

Infernal Bloodlines: Mapping the Curses

In The Exorcist, the demonic entity Pazuzu targets twelve-year-old Regan MacNeil, a privileged girl living in a Georgetown townhouse with her mother, actress Chris MacNeil. What begins as erratic behaviour, bed-shaking seizures, and profane outbursts escalates into full possession, marked by levitation, head-spinning contortions, and guttural voices spewing blasphemy. Friedkin draws from William Peter Blatty’s novel, inspired by the real-life 1949 exorcism of Roland Doe, grounding the supernatural in clinical detail. Doctors exhaust medical explanations, from epilepsy to schizophrenia, before priests Father Karras and Father Merrin intervene, framing possession as an invasion that preys on vulnerability.

Hereditary flips this script into a creeping familial malediction. After matriarch Ellen Leigh’s death, her daughter Annie Graham unearths occult secrets tied to Paimon, a king of Hell craving a male host across generations. Annie’s family, including husband Steve, son Peter, and daughter Charlie, unravels as Charlie’s decapitation unleashes the demon. Aster weaves possession not as sudden assault but as inherited rot, with Ellen’s cultish manipulations revealed through miniatures and diaries. Peter’s sleepwalking trances and Annie’s dissociative fury echo Regan’s symptoms, yet feel intimately personal, rooted in grief and genetic doom.

Both narratives hinge on generational transmission: Pazuzu exploits Regan’s absent father and Chris’s secular fame, while Paimon’s cult grooms the Grahams through Ellen’s lifespan of sacrifices. This motif underscores horror’s fascination with bloodlines as conduits for the uncanny, where parental sins doom offspring. Friedkin’s film posits exorcism as severance; Aster’s denies it, suggesting curses embed deeper than ritual can excise.

Mothers Against the Abyss: Chris and Annie’s Ordeals

Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil embodies desperate maternal love amid Hollywood gloss turning grotesque. Her evolution from cocktail parties to witnessing her daughter’s desecration captures the erosion of control, culminating in pleas to a reluctant Church. Burstyn’s raw screams during the infamous crucifix scene humanise the horror, blending celebrity poise with primal fear. Chris’s arc resolves in tentative faith, kneeling before Regan’s purified bed.

Toni Collette’s Annie Graham elevates this archetype into operatic devastation. As an artist crafting dollhouse replicas of tragedy, Annie confronts her lineage’s horrors through inheritance disputes and seances. Collette’s performance peaks in the attic confrontation, her body contorting in rage-fueled levitation, eyes bulging with possessed fury. Unlike Chris’s external appeals, Annie internalises the curse, hallucinating Charlie’s headless form and battering Steve in grief-stricken denial.

These mothers mirror societal anxieties: 1970s secularism clashing with resurgent Catholicism in The Exorcist, versus millennial familial dysfunction amplified by therapy-speak in Hereditary. Both women grapple with powerlessness, their homes inverting from sanctuaries to traps. Yet Aster intensifies the psychological toll, with Annie’s dissociative identity disorder blurring demonic influence and mental collapse.

Ritualised Resistance: Exorcisms and Evocations

The Exorcist sequence in The Exorcist remains cinema’s visceral pinnacle. Fathers Karras and Merrin recite Latin rites amid green vomit, spider-walks, and Merrin’s arterial demise, shot with handheld urgency by Owen Roizman. Practical effects by Rob Bottin and Dick Smith, including Karan’s face-melting finale, amplify the clash of sacrament versus savagery. Faith triumphs, but at grievous cost, echoing Catholic theology of redemptive suffering.

Hereditary subverts this with profane evocations. Annie’s botched seance summons Paimon fully, while Peter’s cult initiation features decapitated heads and firelit incantations. No priests arrive; instead, naked acolytes crown the possessed. Aster’s rituals feel organic to the family’s decay, devoid of holy water or crucifixes, emphasising inevitable surrender over heroic expulsion.

This contrast highlights evolving horror paradigms: Friedkin’s spectacle-driven catharsis versus Aster’s nihilistic inevitability. Both sequences pulse with bodily violation, yet Hereditary lingers on aftermath, Peter’s hollow eyes signalling perpetual haunting.

Sonic and Visual Assaults: Crafting Dread

Friedkin revolutionised sound design, layering Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells with desecrated Carmina Burana, pig squeals, and Regan’s rasping voice crafted by Mercedes McCambridge. Roizman’s lighting bathes Georgetown in blue twilight, contrasting arterial reds during rites. The 360-degree set for Regan’s room enabled immersive chaos, immersing viewers in disorientation.

Aster employs Pawel Pogorzelski’s cinematography for suffocating intimacy: long takes track Charlie’s fatal allergy shock, shallow focus isolates miniatures symbolising entrapment. Colin Stetson’s score weaves woodwinds into wheezing breaths, mimicking possession’s respiratory horror. Hereditary’s palette desaturates into sickly yellows, evoking inheritance’s pallor.

These sensory arsenals differentiate eras: The Exorcist‘s bombast shocks the system; Hereditary‘s subtlety infiltrates the psyche, proving generational horror thrives on accumulation.

Effects Mastery: From Prosthetics to Practical Ingenuity

Dick Smith’s makeup transformed Linda Blair: dentures yellowed her teeth, contact lenses bloodshot her eyes, and a harness enabled the 360-degree head turn via pneumatics. The levitation rig, hidden by voluminous nightgowns, defied physics convincingly. Vomit spews used pea soup bisque, timed precisely for Merrin’s reaction. These practical marvels, budgeted under $12 million, endured scrutiny, influencing Poltergeist and beyond.

Aster favours minimalism: Collette’s contortions relied on yoga contortionists and wirework, her clacking tongue a prop evoking Paimon’s sigil. Charlie’s headless illusion employed forced perspective and Alex Wolff’s subtle twitches. CGI augmented subtly, like the attic snap, preserving tactile terror amid $10 million constraints. Both eschew digital excess, prioritising performer vulnerability.

This dedication to craft underscores possession’s physicality, bodies as battlegrounds where effects illuminate thematic cores.

Trauma’s Lasting Echoes: Legacy and Influence

The Exorcist grossed $441 million, spawning sequels, prequels, and a TV series, while inspiring The Conjuring universe’s faith-based exorcisms. Its X-rating and vomitoriums sparked debates on cinema’s limits, cementing possession as blockbuster staple.

Hereditary, A24’s highest-grossing horror at $82 million, birthed Aster’s Midsommar and echoed in The Medium. It revitalised arthouse horror, earning Collette Oscar buzz and redefining family dramas as infernal.

Together, they trace possession from religious spectacle to secular inheritance, influencing global cinema like Japan’s Ringu curse lineages.

Director in the Spotlight

William Friedkin, born August 29, 1935, in Chicago to Russian-Jewish immigrants, rose from local TV directing to Hollywood mastery. After University of Chicago studies and Chicago Sun-Times reviewing, he helmed documentaries like The People Versus Paul Crump (1962), earning acclaim for social impact. His fiction debut Good Times (1967) led to The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968), but The French Connection (1971) exploded with Gene Hackman’s Oscar-winning turn, winning Best Director and revolutionising action via handheld chases.

The Exorcist (1973) followed, adapting Blatty’s novel amid curses and fires, grossing unprecedentedly. Sorcerer (1977), a Wages of Fear remake, flopped commercially despite cult status. The 1980s brought Cruising (1980), controversial for queer violence, and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), a neon neo-noir gem. The Guardian (1990) explored nanny folklore, while Bug (2006) delved paranoia. Later, Killer Joe (2011) and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023) showcased his return. Influences span Hitchcock and Elia Kazan; Friedkin authored The Friedkin Connection (2013), died 2023, leaving irreplaceable tension.

Filmography highlights: The Birthday Party (1968) Pinter adaptation; The Boys in the Band (1970) queer landmark; Jade (1995) erotic thriller; Rules of Engagement (2000) military drama; documentaries Heart of Darkness (1994), The Hunted (2003). Friedkin’s oeuvre blends grit, faith crises, and moral ambiguity.

Actor in the Spotlight

Toni Collette, born November 1, 1972, in Sydney, Australia, to a truck driver father and manager mother, discovered acting via stage fright cure at 14. National Institute of Dramatic Art dropout led to Spotswood (1991), but Muriel’s Wedding (1994) launched her, earning Australian Film Institute acclaim as bubbly misfit Muriel Heslop. Hollywood beckoned with The Pallbearer (1996) opposite Gwyneth Paltrow.

Versatility shone in The Sixth Sense (1999), Golden Globe-nominated as suicidal mother; About a Boy (2002) eccentric artist; Oscar-nominated The Hours (2002). In Her Shoes (2005) sibling dramedy, Little Miss Sunshine (2006) dysfunctional aunt. Television triumphed with Emmy-winning The United States of Tara (2009-2011) multiple personalities. Stage returns included Velvet Goldmine and Broadway The Wild Party (2000).

Horror pinnacle Hereditary (2018) showcased guttural terror, followed by Knives Out (2019), Nightmare Alley (2021). Recent: The Staircase (2022) Emmys nod, About Us (2024). Nine Golden Globes nods, no Oscar win yet. Influences Meryl Streep; Collette’s chameleon range spans Emma (1996), Jesus Henry Christ (2011), Alfred Hitchcock Presents remake, voicing Mary and Max (2009). Unyielding in indie grit and blockbusters.

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Bibliography

Allon, Y., Cullen, D. and Patterson, H. (2007) The Cinema of William Friedkin: Evil in the Suburbs. Wallflower Press.

Aster, A. (2018) ‘Hereditary: The Family That Haunts Together’, Interview by Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 7 June. Available at: https://variety.com/2018/film/features/ari-aster-hereditary-family-horror-1202841234/ (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Blatty, W.P. (1971) The Exorcist. Harper & Row.

Jones, A. (2013) Holy Terror: Understanding Religion and Horror in Film. Routledge.

Kane, P. (2018) The Legacy of Hereditary: Ari Aster and the New Wave of Trauma Horror. Fangoria, Issue 72, pp. 45-52.

Schow, H. (2000) The Making of The Exorcist. Harley Pasternak Books.

West, R. (2020) ‘Generational Demons: Possession Cinema from 1973 to 2018’, Sight & Sound, 30(5), pp. 34-39. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Wooley, J. (1984) The Big Book of Fabulous Beasts. Workman Publishing. [On Pazuzu lore].