Hereditary (2018) KILL COUNT

[Music] welcome to the kill cow where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies i'm james agenese and today we're looking at hereditary released in 2018. hereditary is the feature film debut of writer director ari astor and it along with his sophomore effort midsummer slash midsomar shows that the dude is real good at exploring grief just blinding gut-wrenching grief seriously his characters go through some shit hereditary is a horror film that spends most of its time being a family drama astor calls the film a tragedy that curdles into a nightmare it follows a miniatures artist played by tony collette who was previously seen on the kill count as the mom and krampus colette gives the performance of a lifetime here and just like with the guys in the lighthouse it's fucking laughable that she wasn't even nominated for an oscar it's her emotional wreckage that gives the film so much weight and left me feeling tense for two hours straight when i saw it in theaters this is one i've gotta recommend you watch on your own first as long as you can handle sadness because i'ma have to cut short most of its exquisitely crafted anguish for the kill count this ain't a tear count you know hereditary was also one of the scariest first-time viewings i've experienced as an adult and although i know plenty of people were turned off by the film's ending it's over the top headfirst dive into horror really worked for me after two hours of slow creepy build up i'd say hereditary is one of my three favorite horror films from 2018 alongside mandy and annihilation if you're willing to count it i once said on our podcast episode for this movie that i would never cover it on a kill count because it was too sad well fuck past james let's get to the kills [Music] the movie begins with an obituary ellen mother of annie has passed away shame you can tell just by looking at her that that lady was a saucy one annie daughter of ellen delivers a detached eulogy to a bunch of unfamiliar people it's heartening to see so many strange new faces here today surprised that her very private mother has attracted such a crowd maybe they just loved her sense of style annie yeah see check that dude out total necklace guy written all over him annie graham is a miniature maker who copes by incorporating the loss of her mother into her work her profession as a miniaturist also lends itself to an amazing first shot of the film one that seamlessly transitions from the miniatures in her workshop to a full-sized set inside of her son peter's room peter is annie's oldest child and the night after the funeral he assures his dad steve a psychiatrist that he feels fine a little sad okay i get it they're not the only ones feeling that way either should i be sad as for annie and steve's other child charlie well she's doing her own thing making creative little trash figures and sleeping in their cold tree house cause she yolo like that that's how you get pneumonia that's okay charlie is played by then 14 year old millie shapiro who won an honorary tony for playing matilda when she was 10. not only does she give an unforgettable performance in this movie but she's also a big horror movie fan i've always wanted to be in a horror movie because i love watching horror movies charlie was apparently her grandma ellen's favorite even getting breast fed by her gram gram instead of annie though she wasn't entirely perfect in her grandma's eyes she wanted me to be a boy did she also want you to be more satany or wait say tony who's tony tony's a little boy it loves my mom that's right thanks doc in a box of her mom's stuff and he finds a book about spiritualism with a note inside a dress to her talking about sacrifice and rewards love mommy don't you miss mommy annie don't you wish mommy we're here right now actually no that's fucking terrifying wanna do something about that anne thank you not today say tony at school the grandchildren aren't the best students charlie is always making crafts and uh cutting heads off of birds and um getting waved at by strange ladies okay and peter well fucking stone-ass peter just be looking at butts all day or maybe he's just jealous that she has pants to wear having spent so much time in a naked band annie secretly goes to a grief therapy group hoping to find a way to be a little miss sunshine she reluctantly opens up and gives us a bunch of backstory about her and her mom who were estranged for a long time until near the end of ellen's life ellen suffered from dementia which was made worse by her dissociative identity disorder her psychological issues seemed to run in the family in a word they were hereditary since andy's older brother had schizophrenia and hanged himself when he was 16. and of course his suicide notebook her accusing her of putting people inside him peter's token up in his room not noticing that someone's in the tree house behind him breathing and watching him when he gets a text about a party bring a dick he asks his mom if he can go but since he frames it as a school barbecue thing he gets roped into taking his younger sister too but mom charlie's had such a long day already making her dead bird thing and doing her signature clucking noise by the way if you were one of those douchebags who clucked through the movie in theaters fuck you charlie's also been seeing shimmers of light and arsonist dead grandmas in fields so yeah like i said long day at emmy's insistence peter's forced to bring charlie along so she can socialize and he's just super thrilled about that seriously so good big brother go it's okay peter you're almost there the party's just past this poll wait yo it's grandma ellen's necklace design was grandma an electrician they get to the party and while peter as instructed brought his dick looks like other people have brought the nuts oh yeah in an earlier scene we saw that charlie has a nut allergy does that have nuts because we don't have the epipen i don't know why i bring that up though i'm sure it's not important peter immediately hits up that chick with the butt and has a slightly awkward interaction with her how's the party why you want to know if you should come but he wishes he were smolder bravestone right now he finds an inn with a bag of weed and they head to a room to smoke it together not you though charlie go get some of that cake or something i hear the taste is insane just like totally nuts the nuts do a number on charlie's immune system and she asks for help from peter who in a dreadful bit of timing just got super fucking high it's hard to freeze wow that is a nightmare he takes her to the car and drives as fast as he can to get her to a hospital anaphylactic and unable to breathe charlie sticks her head out of the window for air right as peter sees a deer in the road he swerves to avoid it a fatal mistake [Applause] holy shit peter dude holy shit dude yo that's fucked man charlie has been decapitated her headless corpse still in the back seat of the car and if you want to see the head well okay i'll show it to you just cause the movie does the next day there it is fucked up right past james might have had a point i really hope for your sake that you weren't spoiled before you saw that happen there aren't a lot of movie moments that absolutely break me the way that that one did if it makes you feel any better though millie shapiro says she had a great time hanging out the car window in a harness as it drove 30 miles per hour kinda felt like a roller coaster and i love roller coasters she also wanted to keep her fake severed head but i don't think she got to in the end sorry millie completely in shock peter numbly puts the car in drive and returns home there he goes straight into his room to go to sleep and the next morning he lies there awake listening to his mom as she leaves to go get some balsa wood so uh you're still gonna get that balsa wood or once again as i mentioned in the intro this movie is like 90 well-acted anguish but that's something you're gonna have to go watch on your own i'm doing my jokey recap kill count thing here the family's second funeral in a week has left all of them empty bags of grief steve reminisces about charlie through her artwork annie sleeps alone in the treehouse at night and peter relives the moment constantly even while sitting in class and he considers another therapy session but decides against going inside at the last minute on her way out of the parking lot she's flagged down by a woman named joan who commiserates with annie on a personal level my son died joan says her son and seven-year-old grandson died together in a drowning so she knows how annie must be feeling she washes over her with a wave of love and sympathy and gives annie her phone number in case she ever needs to talk huh it's so nice when you're able to make new friends as an adult i'm really happy for you annie that night she sleeps in the tree house again the red glow of the heaters reflecting in peter's eyes as he lies in bed what the fuck was that a cluck oh man this movie's got simple sound effects and empty corners seeming piss your pants scary and he goes to see joan the next day finding a very peculiar doormat outside her apartment my mother used to embroidery once just like that did she really isn't that funny yes it is funny annie spills her misery for a while and when the subject of peter comes up she recalls the time when she woke up from a sleepwalking spell and found herself standing next to him and charlie all three of them soaked in paint thinner and her about to strike a match holy shit and it was impossible to convince them that it was just sleepwalking which of course it was unsurprisingly that permanently scarred their relationship and i can't say that andy's latest miniature would help at all it's not about him oh no no it's a neutral view of the accident yeah i'm still pretty fucked up now the family has a dinner that becomes one of the film's most devastating scenes and we're talking about a movie where a little girl got her head knocked off ari astor has called it the centerpiece of the film as it's the full-scale eruption of all the familial tension that's been building it's very uncomfortable to watch mostly because the argument between annie and peter is so vicious and real your sister is dead but you can't take responsibility for anything once again career defining performance by tony collette i find it hilarious that colette was only looking to do lighthearted comedies when her agent gave her the script though it wasn't what she was looking for the script was too good to turn down on the subject of acting the 19 year old alex wolf absolutely kills it and i've also got to bring some attention to gabriel byrne it's easy to overlook his performance since steve is such a quiet measured character but he serves as a great grounding it's the pitch perfect cast that makes this movie so effective horror films are much more upsetting and frightening if you are invested in the characters while leaving a craft store hopefully finally getting that balsa wood and he runs into joan in the parking lot acting all kinds of effervescent and dowd is totally great too especially with this cloying performance that contrasts with her work in the leftovers and the handmaid's tale joan tells annie that she's jumping for joy because she went to a seance where a medium connected her to her late grandson an unsure annie joins joan at her apartment where she reaches out to her grandson louie sure enough and he feels his presence like a sixth sense he's all around them hi louie little louie moves cups plays with hair and writes messages on chalkboards i love you grandma oh louie i love you sweetheart but this is all too much for annie who throws up the x and calls it on her way out joan gives her instructions so she can talk with charlie read this out loud every syllable very carefully it's to make things start annie doesn't want to try it but an experience on the way home makes her decision and seals her fate that night annie is in bed when she realizes they've got ants come on now did someone leave cake crumbs out or possibly a dead peter that don't get your ants too you know oh and those are fire ants no wonder andy looks so scared mom what are you doing oh nothing just sleepwalking and talking real shit i never wanted to be your mother whoa too real shit annie even mouth vomits that she tried to have a miscarriage while pregnant but promises that she's happy it didn't work and she loves him even though he's now covered in paint thinner again and so is she and there's the match and who just a dream still pretty fucked up though annie wakes peter up for realsies so he and steve can join her downstairs and now's as good a time as any to mention their awesome freaking house the exterior of the gram house was shot in utah during a very green spring but the interiors of the house were all built from scratch as part of an intricate set on a soundstage ari astor who likes to avoid run-of-the-mill coverage spent six months planning out every single shot of the film's 156 scenes before spending another three weeks refining them all alongside production designer grace yoon and cinematographer pabel pogarzelski they used wide shots in these large spaces to make the grams look like figures in one of annie's dioramas it takes some coaxing but annie gets peter and steve around a table and asks them to join her for a sean all right i'll stay the line delivery in camera pan is so wes anderson to me steve's way more skeptical but annie takes their hands and using charlie's notebook as a spiritual connection calls out to her late daughter peter feels the air quote flexing and then all of them watch as a glass moves on its own the guys get freaked out peter barely able to breathe and after a quick pyro entrance there's a spirit in the house hello mom mom oh man you're being real scary addy why are you scaring that lady you're scaring us now knock it off the classics always work at school peter sees that shimmering ring of light and a reflection of himself smirking like a little shit he calls his dad and says a vengeful spirit is after him and when steve reports what happened to annie they get into an argument that leaves her so angry she starts smashing apart her school for ants kind of painful to watch her destroy all these incredible miniatures made by toronto-based effects artist steve newbern newburn was originally contracted to just make the movie's prosthetics like the various disturbing versions of charlie's severed head after reading the script newburn asked gary astor if he could also make the miniatures a crucial part to the film since they kind of represent how powerless the graham family is with outside forces controlling them like dolls in a dollhouse newburn led a small team that spent 10 weeks creating thousands of 1-12 scale miniatures of places and things it worked hand-in-hand with production designer grace yoon to make sure everything matched the full-sized sets the carpet the wallpaper everything some of the miniatures were handcrafted of wood and others were 3d printed while others still were built specifically to be destroyed here as for seeing his work demolished newburn was pretty chill about it they were all built to be smashed kind of run-of-the-mill for the miniature side of things most of the time when you're building a miniature it's for the purpose of it being blown up or smashed or destroyed in some some respect it's it's actually the thing you kind of look forward to while annie's reached the point of professional self-destruction peter's emotional breakdown is manifesting itself in different ways ways that involve seeing charlie in his room but look on the bright side dude at least you're seeing her with the head still attached just can't fucking win huh man peter is suddenly grabbed at the top of his head and held against his bed and was that done by annie sleepwalking again or did she really just run in when she heard him screaming like she said shit's getting way too weird here and when charlie's notebook fills up with drawings of peter x'd out and scared andy decides to burn the book and sever the spiritual connection when she tries though her arm becomes a flame just like the book and the fire doesn't die down until she's fully stamped it out the next day she heads back to joan's apartment but her friend isn't inside what is inside is that symbol from ellen's necklace a bunch of candles some of charlie's creations and some pictures of peter another gander at the doormat spurs annie to look through her mom's stuff again and she finds a book talking about king payment a demon who will possess the most vulnerable host he can find after being in boat especially if the host is a dude heyman loved the dudes aryester wanted to avoid using boring old lucifer so he did some pagan research and settled on king payment lucifer's right-hand man who's been mentioned in literature dating back to the 17th century payment is a camel riding demon servant who promises wealth in exchange for offerings rich rewards like what annie's reading about right now she also finds in her mother's scrapbook a whole bunch of pictures of joanie cause she's a phony she knew grandma ellen and was so close to her she even helped give her golden showers and now she's stalking annie's kid i expel you what expelled wait are you the new principal joan tells peter to get out of his body which is not the kind of shit you want to hear when you're already dealing with shimmering rings all over the place and he decides to head into the attic where the number of flies would put the amityville house to shame the flies are buzzing around because ellen's body is up here with that symbol on the wall above her the seal of payment and i know she died before the film started but we've gotten to know her more since then so i'll put her on the list now as annie discovers her body recently dug up from its grave peter keeps hearing clucks in class and they affect him so much he becomes a mother clucka himself then he starts banging his head against the desk and man it's real messed up yeah ain't no one in that class forgetting this alex wolfe went method for this role keeping himself in character for pretty much the entire duration of the shoot he didn't even introduce himself as alex to the crew until the final day of shooting he actually bloodied himself against the desk in this scene even though the top of it was made of protective foam wolf went through so much for this role that he ended up going to therapy after he rapped and he's compared the toll of the experience to boxing which i guess he did when he was younger intense guy peter is picked up from school by steve who can't even keep it together anymore and after he gets peter back home the last thing he wants to hear is that there's a body in the attic i think it's my mother i think but i can't tell because the skin's all black and she's all distended but the head is gone though he's skeptical steve follows the flies and discovers off-screen that ellen's body is up there but he doesn't listen to annie as she explains the whole phony jony thing he thinks annie went and dug up her mom's body instead of this family inheriting a curse psychiatrist steve thinks there's a more usual suspect to blame namely that annie has inherited her mom's dissociative identity disorder after all she does suffer from sleepwalking feuds and seemed pretty dissociated during the season hello mom mom annie wants steve to burn the notebook even though it may immolate her because she just wants to end this and save her family but steve refuses i'm not going to do this with you anymore no no it's not helpful she tries to burn the book herself again but this time steve goes up in flames and burns like he was losing the cooking round in an academic decathlon and he is shocked at the sight of it until she absorbs the shimmering light and instantly becomes blank-faced another iconic shot that tony coette nailed in a single take day ends night comes and there are a bunch of naggy people around don't miss them peter wakes up to a very quiet house though some light is coming from the tree house as far as the house house though not a single sign of wait what the fuck yo no how long she been up there yo peter check it out look behind oh nope you missed it that air walk was nasty too he comes downstairs where he finds the burnt body of his dad next to the fireplace who could have done that you think maybe the scary lady hanging out on the ceiling or maybe it was that smiley guy from the funeral now standing in the doorway naked as the day he was born and looking damn mighty proud of it too and he emerges from a corner and chases peter upstairs where he climbs into the attic and hides should be safe up there dude i'm sorry i'm sorry wait did she get a ladder or this movie is so fucking freaky i love it the banging stops and peter looks around the fly infested attic though he doesn't see his grandma's body since it's gone now in its place a picture of peter with his eyes punched out then he hears a noise coming from somewhere above him [Music] what is that wet kind of oh it's annie just hanging out sawing at her neck with piano wire with more prosthetics made by steve newbern apparently none of this film's effects were digital the terrifying sight of annie and the wire saw is only outweirded by a trio of nikes waving at peter it causes him to flee through the attic window right as the sound effect tells us that andy's all done sawing a headless shadow floats over and past peter whose body is then visited by that ring of shimmering light this is the soul of payment which took over annie after steve died and caused her to be the creepy ceiling skater lady with her head removed payment's soul could once again leave and find a new host and now it has i won't count peter as dead because like maybe his soul is still in there somewhere though he's definitely not the one driving as he approaches the glowing tree house passing by smiling naked people as he does once inside he finds more nikes kneeling and a big old king payment statue with charlie's head wearing a crown oh and also the headless bodies of his mom and grandmother joan arises amidst these followers of queen lee and places a crown atop peter's hat only it's not really peter charlie you're all right now wait charlie i thought that was payment you are payment one of the eight kings of hell oh so it's charlie and payman in peter's body yeah i i get it totally joan tells the charlie peter payment man that they're forever in his service and the movie ends with some rosemary's baby like chanting [Applause] that's the end of the movie but in case you needed some kind of wrap up explanation here you go annie's mom ellen alias queen lee had always been involved with a nakey cult that worshipped king payment they wanted to give him a human body which needed to be part of ellen's bloodline thus the title hereditary so ellen first attempted to use her son annie's brother that didn't work out so well and of course the suicide note blamed her accusing her of putting people inside him by time peter was born annie and ellen were estranged so she wasn't able to get to it when annie had charlie she offered an olive branch and allowed ellen to have a very close relationship with her granddaughter even when you're a little baby she wouldn't let me feed you because she needed to feed you from the moment she was born charlie's body has been used by ellen as a payment incubator a pain incubator if you will in fact the clunking is a sign of payment's presence a pain indicator but charlie's body was never meant to be payments forever home since he has a preference for mail housing she wanted me to be a boy the cult wrote magic words around the house and as indicated by the seal of payment on the head severing utility pole also had some influence in charlie getting killed the decapitation specifically may have allowed pain and spirit to shimmer around more freely it being the ring of light seen throughout the movie i uh think at least that's my pain interpretation when joan gave annie sean's instructions to speak to charlie it was actually a set of words to activate payment it's to make things start that was his demonic ass moving cups around tables not the spirits of dead kids after that things got rough for peter because as noted in ellen's book the male body meant to house payment had to be broken down before the moving process could begin payment killed steve and possessed annie to make her all scary and also eventually kill herself which left peter broken down enough for payment to enter his body though the demon may still think of itself as charlie having inhabited her body for so long that's why joan had to calm him down in that final scene hope that helps no no it's not helpful how many people were left her deditary and hereditary let's find out and get to the numbers only four people died in hereditary but that didn't make it any less scary the victims were three headless females and one male steve a mostly cherry pie chart there and with a run time of 127 minutes that left us with a kill on average every 31.75 minutes i'll give the golden chainsaw for coolest kill honestly to charlie even though it was a real dark moment her death was completely shocking and instantly became an iconic moment in horror history you gotta honor that you know dole machete for lama's kill will go to ellen the saucy satanist and that's it hereditary came out in 2018 got amazing reviews and then got some backlash because that's what happens when you get amazing reviews i still think it's fucking great your long wait is over because on tuesday i'm starting stranger things too but until then i'm james agenese this has been the kill count thanks a lot for watching this killcount i want to thank some patrons like mariah zamora grayson starkey amy christopher tucker see hof and aaron shidler hey real quick shout out to scream magazine who sent me a couple of their issues to read it's filled with really cool interviews and behind the scenes information on both modern and classic horror movies it's an awesome hundred page supplement to any horror movie fans knowledge check them out link in the description below thanks everyone be good people

Channel: undefined

Views: 3,191,902

Rating: 4.9661751 out of 5

Keywords: horror, dead meat, movies, scary, films, kills, kill count, body count, james a. janisse, jaj, pine commander boogie, hereditary, DMKC, hereditary explained, hereditary kill count, dead meat hereditary, hereditary ending, hereditary reaction, hereditary review, hereditary trailer, best horror, horror film, horror channel, ari aster, ari aster hereditary, ari aster explains hereditary, toni collette, toni collette hereditary, hereditary scene, a24 films, watch hereditary, a24

Id: VFHiKAfPpGk

Length: 26min 34sec (1594 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/XygorTheGreat]

First horror movie since the first Paranormal Activity to SERIOUSLY creep me out. Paranormal Activity came out right after I started living on my own for the first time, and Hereditary had me double-checking my ceiling for Paimon-possessed Toni Collete before going to sleep that night.

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Great KC! Those we're some perfectly precise Paimon puns there, u/JamesAJanisse!

[u/26SobbingHorses]

I like James’ Shining carpet pattern socks

[u/IFixxThings]

Gawd damn what a movie. Although this is the film that completely turned me off from movie theaters, between douchebags doing the clicking noise (or clucking?) and Charlie's death when someone said "RIP Harambe."

Almost completely ruined the experience.