The 2010s have been a great decade for horror. So, this Halloween, we at The Pop Break have come together to celebrate Halloween and the impending end of the decade by picking some of our favorite scary movies from the last 10 years aka the best horror movies of the decade. Caution: spoilers ahead!
Hereditary — Erin Doyle
Ari Aster’s debut film, Hereditary, transported us to a new kind of horror. Although it features actress Toni Collette in the lead, that’s not what gives it its power. Hereditary’s unsettling authenticity is what shakes us at our core. The feeling that we, as an audience, could resonate and identify with the grieving Graham family is what scares us most. With every scene of screaming matches between family members, sleep-walking confessions, consuming alcohol or smoking weed to ease the depression to help grieve, opening up to the wrong people, every questionable, yet human decision — Hereditary holds them up to as a mirror and forces us to look inward. The Grahams, even with all their flaws, could be any one of us.
The acting, score, and cinematography are amazing. The final scene as “Reborn” plays emanates a peaceful atmosphere, yet we see Peter, portrayed by Alex Wolff, smiling as he’s crowned the demonic king, Paimon. With the use of warm tones in the treehouse, right after we’ve seen such darkness and violence throughout the movie, one can’t help but compare it to a nativity scene. Fear is subjective, and whether it’s the “klokks” that echo through the Grahams’ home as Paimon lurks, the ending, or a hysterical family, Hereditary shook us all.
Hereditary is far more upsetting than it is frightening. I would still not recommend it to someone who has recently experienced loss. You felt this family’s pain and noticed their misery. You felt the tension that was seeping through their floorboards and knew what it felt like to be afraid of your own family spiraling. Aster understood how to capture that brand of an isolating, collapsing home life with perfect execution. However, nothing could help the Graham family. They couldn’t even help themselves as they tried to create this perfect world inside their delicate doll house. There was no family curse in this amazing movie: the family was the curse.
