2018 is already shaping up to be another great year for horror. Less than half of it is over and it’s already a safe bet that one of the genre’s biggest hits will be Ari Aster’s Hereditary, which opens in UK cinemas this Friday.
Aster’s debut feature as director and writer, it examines the effect on a family when its matriarch dies. She still casts a shadow over everybody to terrifying effect and the family slowly starts to unravel, so the mother (Toni Collette) has to explore darker forces in an effort to help them all escape what seems to be an irresistible power.
Self-confessed cinephile Aster admitted to Flickering Myth’s Freda Cooper that the film was deliberately designed to upset audiences but that, while it could be described as a horror, it is equally a family tragedy, if not a nightmare. He outlines the process he went through in making the film and the directors who have influenced his career and the movie itself, as well as giving some hints as to what to expect from his next project, which he’s currently shooting in Europe.
Hereditary is released in UK cinemas on Friday, 15 June. Read our review here.
Freda Cooper. Follow me on Twitter.