The Ending Of Hereditary Explained

For months now, the buzz behind horror film Hereditary has steadily been building. Since its festival run, critics have raved about Ari Aster's directorial debut. Rolling Stone called it "the scariest movie of 2018." According to The Huffington Post, Aster himself describes the film as "Rosemary's Baby meets Ordinary People." Whichever way you look at it, one thing's for certain: Hereditary is here to scare you.

Starring Toni Collette — in what The Boston Herald calls her "most difficult and the most demanding role" — Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, and Ann Dowd, Hereditary follows the unsettling story of the Graham family. Bereaving the loss of Ellen, the family matriarch, the story explores their enduring struggle to heal during a time of great suffering.

The film's marketing campaign has led many to expect a grief-ridden ghost story once the theater lights dim. But while there are plenty of common horror tropes explored here, Hereditary pulls back the curtain on an unexpected paranormal component that reveals itself as the driving factor behind all of the film's unfortunate traumas. This all culminates in the final 15 minutes, leaving many viewers stunned, and many more asking questions. What the heck happened? Here's the ending of Hereditary explained.

Motherhood is a theme that carries the film to term all the way to its disturbing ending. The death of Annie's mother informs the burden she bears, and makes her conflicted sense of familial responsibility quite clear. In her eulogy, in her stories, and in her recollections, the negative nature in which Annie views her late mother begins to reflect directly on Annie herself. As much as she tries to distance herself, it's impossible to deny her mother's impact on her own psyche.

Hereditary is about a family's loss. But it's also about a lost family. As Annie confides in new friend Joan (Dowd), we learn that she used to sleepwalk. Annie recounts a horrendous moment, waking up to find her children doused in paint thinner with a lit match in her hand.

In passing, Annie explains that she fought tooth and nail to keep her son Peter (Wolff) out of her mother's grasp, giving her younger daughter Charlie (Shapiro) over for grandmother to raise instead. There's a tragic theme of inheritance here. It's called Hereditary for a reason. By all accounts, Annie's childhood was not a happy one. Handing down this trauma to her children plagues her to the point of attempting to set them all ablaze — creating a permanent effigy of her crumbling family before they're lost forever.

As previously mentioned, Annie spends a lot of her time locked away in her studio creating miniatures. Her trauma comes to life in the scenes she creates. It's a unique narrative component, to be sure. Not only does the act of minimizing her grief into these lifeless figurines show just how disconnected from life Annie has become, it gives the audience the perspective of this damaged family from afar. In fact, the majority of the film takes place in the Graham's secluded house and as the events unfold, the camera pulls back far enough to present each character as if they were mere pawns helpless to a bigger scheme.

"We are with the family in their ignorance of what's happening, but then there's supposed to be this more sadistic, knowing perspective that you feel," Aster explained in a Q&A via Inverse. That sadistic, knowing perspective makes itself more apparent through the artwork of both Annie and her daughter Charlie. While Annie's figurines exist in a creepy stillness, Charlie's odd drawings and twisted collection of tchotchkes — her tin dolls begin to take on an organic component after a bird incident drives the girl to take its head home with her — add a new layer to the film's recurring theme of inheritance. They foreshadow the violence to come.

Annie wasn't long for those grief support groups. But in her move to avoid the company of other similarly sad folks, she makes an unlikely connection with a woman named Joan. The glue that binds them is loss. Annie's mother and daughter are dead. Joan's grandson drowned. In this shared misery, a friendship blossoms. But much like her support groups, Annie keeps this friendship a secret from her family. 

It's not long after their first meeting that Joan reveals an unbelievable breakthrough to Annie: through a seance, she was able to communicate with her deceased grandson. It doesn't take much coercion to get Annie back to Joan's place, where a little incantation sparks a supernatural interlude. As she watches a loving message appear to Joan on a mini chalkboard, Annie becomes sold on this method of communication and goes home to try it herself. 

In the middle of the night, Annie forces Steve and Peter to take part in the odd ritual. And similar to the events that transpired at Joan's place, an otherworldly presence makes its presence known. Lo and behold, the ghost of Charlie has seemingly come out to say hi! It's this moment of contact that shakes Peter to his core. Annie believes she summoned the ghost of her little girl, but as we begin to learn, a different entity entirely was just welcomed into the house.  

Through it all, Steve struggles to keep his family together while being Annie's rock. But as the events unfold, even he reaches his breaking point. The dead body Annie finds in the attic is still there when he got home. But instead of believing Annie's concern that Peter is being targeted by Joan and her mother's secret cult, he comes to the conclusion that his wife desecrated Ellen's grave.

Earlier, Annie attempted to burn Charlie's sketch book — believing that the entity in the house was tethered to the child's personal item. Instead, as the book caught fire, so did her arm. It turns out the item wasn't linked to Charlie ... it was linked to her. The men in the Graham family had already made a habit of dying tragic deaths. But in her attempt to get Steve to toss the book in the fire, with the intention of saving their son, the inevitable confrontation between husband and wife finally happens. In his mind, she was sick, like her brother before her. Their marriage was finally falling apart. 

In his claims that this was her mental illness talking, Annie grabs the book and tosses it in the fireplace. Steve immediately bursts into flames. She may not have been holding the match, but the last thing tethering Annie to the real world was burning alive. For all intents and purposes, Ellen and Joan's witch cult's mission was coming to life.

As Paimon settles into Peter's body, we watch as the boy climbs the steps to the treehouse — the place where Charlie and Annie previously sought restful asylum in the wee hours of the morning. It's here that Peter faces his headless family members, bowing before him, as the voice of Joan addresses the newly crowned King of Hell. She references his previous female vessels as a mistake corrected. It's in this scene that we learn that Charlie, throughout her 13 years on the planet, was possessed by Paimon the entire time. Ultimately, her vessel was unsatisfactory.  Earlier in the film, she admits to Annie that her grandmother always wanted her to be a boy. This was why. 

With Paimon now in a "healthy male body," it's hard not to think about the disturbing pattern of tragic male deaths in the Graham family. Were Annie's father and brother mentally ill? Probably not. It seems that they were driven to their deaths by Ellen's sinister manipulations. More importantly, is Hereditary's climax an allegory on gender politics within our societal patriarchy? A female body was never supposed to be a part of this Paimon ritual. After multiple generations suffered at the whims of this cult, Peter finally steps into his rightful role as The King of Pain. With his crowning, the movie ends on a hard truth: Peter is in this position of power and privilege for no other reason than the uncontrollable circumstance that he was born a boy.