‘Hereditary’: Family Is A Sacrifice In Terrifying New Horror Trailer

[Published at The Playlist] “Every family tree hides a secret,” reads the tagline for “Hereditary,” the latest horror phenomenon starring Toni Collette. It was picked up instantly at Sundance by A24 (“The Witch,” “The Florida Project“), the tastemaking studio with a strong track record for spotting independent gems and making sure they’re seen when birthed into the world. But first, they’ve released a new trailer for the horror film, and it definitely looks like audiences are in store for a terrifying experience.To paint a picture of how grueling it was to even shoot, Collette spoke to Yahoo! Entertainment about her intense on-set experience. “Recently, I filmed a movie that really was the hardest job of my life,” said Collette. “This horror film called ‘Hereditary’… and it’s an intense one. It surprised me every day. I think if I’d really contemplated it any more before I started, I might have just run the other way because every day was just so much more full-on than I even anticipated. So I just had to take it one step at a time. But in a perverse way, it was really satisfying, even though it was like twisting myself inside out.”

Collette’s sentiments about Hereditary speak volumes, considering she starred in “The Sixth Sense,” one of the most critically acclaimed horror films to be released in the past 20 years. The trailer for “Hereditary” makes the case that it is more than jump-scares and mindless macabre, but instead, a thought-provoking and prestigious genre film. “Get Out,” the most recent example of horror films done right, shocked critics last year at Sundance won an Oscar a year later for Best Original Screenplay. Could “Hereditary” follow suit?

“Hereditary” marks the feature film debut of writer and director Ari Aster, and it co-stars Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, and Ann Dowd.

Moviegoers will have to wait until til summer to watch the film, but hopefully, that will give audiences enough time to mentally prepare for the terrifying experience.

Read the official synopsis for “Hereditary” below.

When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter’s family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited. Making his feature debut, writer-director Ari Aster unleashes a nightmare vision of a domestic breakdown that exhibits the craft and precision of a nascent auteur, transforming a familial tragedy into something ominous and deeply disquieting, and pushing the horror movie into chilling new terrain with its shattering portrait of heritage gone to hell.

“Hereditary” opens June 8th in wide release via A24. Watch the trailer (which we’re quoted in) and then once you have the context, visit Charlie’s Etsy page.