Hello! I went and checked out your Hereditary review that you mentioned on my own article which briefly touched on it to see your points.

While I agree with you that the family is certainly off-putting, I think that there was a definite reason they were written this way other than simply frightening the audience, and I also think that, although similar in some respects to King's work, there are major, major differences that set this movie apart from the concept put forward in "Gramma".

Firstly, I think that the way the family acts is very interesting. I can see where you might be put off by their lack of warmth/familiarity, but keep in mind that the grandma died off-screen, and was mostly disliked by the vast majority of the family. The only one who seemed affected by any of this was the father character, which makes sense, as he serves as the "sane one" or the "straight man" in the madness to come.

I mentioned in my article that there are a lot of beheadings in the film and allusions to the loss of heads. This is important to my theory.

BUT, before I go into my theory, I need to slap a massive

SPOILERS AHEAD

tag on this, as I really think people should go see it before I talk about it in slightly more detail here.

I think the movie is more about mental illness and family dysfunction than the supernatural.

Now, before I go into my theory, I want to mention that this film, although similar in some aspects (it contains witches and possession and involves a boy), it is VERY different in others.

Annie does not summon "something awful" in the seance, she summons King Paimon, AKA Charlie. This is very apparent, as Annie speaks in her voice. The reason things go very crazy from that point on has nothing to do with Charlie, but everything to do with the witch's coven's plans.

You see, very early in the movie, if you had a quick eye, you could catch a glimpse of the ending in the book that Annie picked up and rifled through. There was a page, and on that page, it showed King Paimon carrying several heads- each of them female. One a young girl, one a woman, and one an older woman. This basically told you the ending if you were paying attention to the massive amounts of foreshadowing present thus far.

King Paimon is a Lord of Hell, and, by default, represents madness, chaos, and greed. His preferred host is of a young male, and Peter just so happens to fit that description.

The witch's coven's entire plan was to bring about the return of King Paimon to this mortal realm and offer him sacrifices so that they would reap the reward of eternal wealth, knowledge, and power.

In that degree, I suppose summoning Charlie's spirit was, indeed, bringing something horrible into their house, but at that point, Charlie had no memory of being a Lord of Hell and was simply a frightened child.

Now that I have effectively explained the admittedly cleverly hidden plot, allow me to explain my theory.

From the get-go, you get the feeling that the family dynamic is very wrong. Everyone except maybe Peter and his father is entirely insane to some degree. His mother projects her problems into her strange and creepy career, even to the extent of constructing the horrific event of Charlie's decapitation, all without showing a scrap of emotion. She was upset at the event, of course, but once she miniaturized and compartmentalized it, made herself seem more powerful and big compared to it, she calmed down.

This, of course, is a very unhealthy way to deal with issues, and this is never more apparent than when the story of her "sleepwalking" issues come about.

That is not sleepwalking, as anyone should know, but a form of psychosis that has been found in mentally unstable mothers. There was a famous case where a mother put her infant in a swing and pushed him, incessantly, for two days straight. The infant died of dehydration, but she continued pushing him in a dazed state until someone woke her up. She had no idea she did anything and was horrified once she found out.

This family, for the most part, is composed of the mentally unstable, psycopathic, and sociopathic. Peter and his father are the only ones who, for most of the movie, aren't.

Think about it. Why is it that whenever characters start acting horrendously erratic and/or borderline psychotic, they LOSE THEIR HEADS? Sure, if you want to be literal, it's because it fits into the occult ritual they want to perform, but on a metaphorical level, it makes sense, too.

Charlie loses her head due to her autistic naivete, Annie loses her head in a psychotic (shown as supernatural) rage, before which, also in a very deranged state, she indirectly killed her sane husband by burning him alive, and Peter, after all this happens, gets possessed by Charlie's spirit and becomes eerily calm, his eyes wide and seemingly traumatized by the horrors he had to go through in order to reach this conclusion.

The more you think about it, the more this theory makes sense...why was the family almost entirely apathetic when Ellen died? The infamous dinner scene, where Annie glares at her own son with so much unbridled hatred and contempt, you swear she's about to stab him in the eye with her fork?

We aren't meant to sympathize with these characters because they are relatable, we are meant to sympathize with them because they are SICK, and we are watching what happens when nothing is done about it.

That, I believe is where the true horror of Hereditary comes from.

Oh, and I just realized...Hereditary. That title. Many mental illnesses such as chronic depression, schizophrenia, and psychopathy have been noted to possibly be hereditary. Title makes a lot more sense now.

Anyway, I still think you made a great case for this movie in your article, I just respectfully disagree, most likely because I'm overthinking things. I typically tend to do that with these films, being a writer myself.