Having received extraordinary reviews after its’ premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Hereditary, the debut feature of writer / director Ari Aster, has been gathering more accolades as it readies for release in both the US and UK. Starring Gabriel Byrne and Toni Collette as parents trying to deal not only with the death of Collette’s character Annie’s despised mother, but also their withdrawn teenage son and disturbed younger daughter, and Annie slowly uncovering her shocking family history, reviews have included critics calling it ‘the singularly most terrifying horror film in years’ and, by Time Out, ‘a new generation's The Exorcist’.

Premiering at Sundance, the film immediately spawned some effusive reviews, one of which, from A.A. Dowd of The AV Club, called it ’the most traumatically terrifying horror film in ages’, and recalled the circumstances of the event ‘… in a crowded Park City theater, during the second public screening of Ari Aster’s blood-curdling Hereditary, most of which I spent in a state of deep distress, palms soaked, breath shallow. This isn’t a scary movie. It’s pure emotional terrorism, gripping you with real horror, the unspeakable kind, and then imbuing the supernatural stuff with those feelings. It didn’t play me like a fiddle. It slammed on my insides like a grand piano’. His rave review continued with ‘The story unfolds at a deliberate creep, slowly unraveling its insidious design. But the shocks come early and often, beginning with something so upsetting, in its harrowing real-life possibility, that it may challenge viewers’ capacity to keep watching. (I certainly felt a strong urge to bolt or at least look away from the screen – a sign that a horror movie is working like gangbusters.)’ RogerEbert.com expanded on Dowd’s experience – ‘Minutes after its midnight premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Ari Aster’s Hereditary was drawing comparisons to previous Sundance horror hits like The Babadook and It Follows. Now, Sundance regulars are often correctly skeptical of how those willing to stay up till 2am for a horror movie respond – it’s often a bit, shall we say, genre-biased – but this is a case in which the film completely lives up to the hype. Hereditary is a deeply unsettling film, the kind of horror movie that pulls from relatable human emotions like grief and resentment to ultimately become an absolute nightmare’.

The Playlist stated ‘This is a remarkable, triumphant, and confident picture by Aster, who gives the film an almost meditative-like sensation, as you feel every space you’re in, every emotion, every moment of grief. Hereditary refuses to employ cheap thrills, creating its cinematic scares with atmosphere, and continuously reinventing itself at every turn’, while Bustle said it's ‘ …truly unlike anything you've seen before’. Screen International observed ‘Grief, guilt and family dysfunction prove to be overwhelming forces in Hereditary, a supremely elegant and tonally assured horror movie that trusts its audience will acquiesce to its measured, absorbing storytelling style’.

In a five-star review for The Guardian confessed ‘Hereditary tripled my heart rate, prickle-massaged my scalp, cured my hiccups – and pretty much terrified me’, adding of Toni Collette, her ‘operatic, hypnotic performance seals the deal every second she's on the screen’, concluding ‘Surely this magnificent actor will get some silverware next February’.

Vox admitted ‘The first time I saw [film] I yelped a lot, and very nearly crawled under my seat once or twice. What you feel from the start is a sense of real horror, some kind of cross between dismay and disgust, which starts out almost undefinable and builds to a (literal) crescendo by the end’, as Vanity Fair observed ‘Writer-director Ari Aster, making a promising feature debut, has created plenty of forbidding atmosphere; there’s almost no shot in the film that isn’t filled with creeping dread. But Hereditary ultimately engages on a more emotional and intellectual register than it does on the visceral’.

The Independent believed ‘The fact Hereditary is being (rightly) talked of as one of the most singularly terrifying, singularly disturbing horror films in years speaks to its unique sense of mood. Secrecy, guilt, anguish: [film] breeds its own phantoms. Ones which like, hang around, to boot. Weeks later, you may step into a dark room, and that chilled feeling will come rushing back: am I truly alone right now?’

Hereditary is released in the US on 8th June and in the UK a week later, with previews on the 14th.