Hereditary drops you into the middle of a story about a family in mourning — without much description about what happened in the past, or what's going to happen in the future. The film follows Annie Graham (Toni Collette), her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), and their children Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro) as they process the death of Annie's mother and the underlying, unaddressed trauma at the heart of their household.
Before it veers into horror territory, Hereditary is predominantly a family drama, with off-putting supernatural elements slowly finding their way into the narrative. Annie is reminded of her mother everywhere, even starting to see apparitions of her around the house. The family soon finds itself in the throes of another tragedy that brings out Annie's dark side and raises the question of the way our parents continue to affect our lives long after they're gone.
With an ending that spirals into ritualistic chaos surrounding the cult-like worship of the demonic god Paimon, Hereditary leaves viewers wondering what the hell just happened as the credits roll. It's a question that's still on people's minds to this day, as many seek to resolve the issues that the film left unanswered.
Hereditary's ending is one of the major reasons why people are hoping for a legitimate sequel that clears things up, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen, as the film's director wanted to leave things open-ended. "The big pitch was, 'I'm making a film about a possession ritual from the perspective of the sacrificial lambs.' That's what the film is meant to be doing. So we only learn what they piece together," Aster told Film Comment's Michael Koresky in May 2018. "And then there's a little extra at the very end being delivered to this empty vessel that we were invested in before he was emptied out."
The chances of Aster making a Hereditary sequel — or a prequel, for that matter — that packages everything up neatly is unlikely, since the director may not entirely know how to do that himself, or even want to. As they say, some things are better left unsaid.
