10 Best Indie Horror Movies Of All Time
4. Hereditary
Hereditary didn’t sound like it was going to be anything at all special. The concept was not dissimilar to many of the dashed out horrors that fill the multiplexes, and even the title sounded generic enough to prevent excitement. Indeed, the basic premise - a family subjected to a serious haunting as a result of a dark family secret - is pretty much standard fare in the horror genre.
What Hereditary could boast, though, was wall to wall scares - proper scares, the kind that have you hurling your popcorn in the cinema and that linger in the mind long after you’ve returned back home. Director Ari Aster (in his debut here) has an eye for the unsettling - he would follow this up with the equally discomforting Midsommar. Hereditary never settles for cheap jolts; there’s a depth to the horror here.
Best of all is star Toni Colette, delivering an awards-calibre performance that elevates the film greatly. She pulls you into the horror, planting you in the house alongside her. For horror fans with spooky haunted house fatigue, Hereditary is the antidote, a totally fresh film that builds on familiar ideas and tropes but elevates every one of them.