About Hereditary
Directed and written by Ari Aster, Hereditary stars Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, and Gabriel Bryne. It was released in the year 2018.
Hereditary is a psychological horror film that focuses on Annie Graham and her family when they first attend the funeral of Annie’s mother. Unable to deal with the grief, she joins a support group and one of the members indicates that a seance might be the answer to deal with some unresolved issues. As the film progresses it becomes more and more apparent to Annie and her family that their house may be a site for Occultist practice and worship. This, of course, leads to all sorts of bizarre scenarios and possessions along the way.
During a recent re-watch I started to think of all the other movies like Hereditary who some of you may want to tick off your bucket list. So, let’s get stuck into my 11 picks.
11. Apostle (2018)
Directed and Written by Gareth Evans, Apostle stars Dan Stevens, Lucy Boynton, Mark Lewis Jones, Bill Milner, Kristine Froseth, Paul Higgins and Michael Sheen. It was released in the year 2018.
Apostle follows Thomas Richardson, who travels to a remote island in 1905 to rescue his kidnapped sister from a cult led by Prophet Malcolm. Posing as a new recruit, Thomas uncovers that the island’s dwindling resources have driven the cult to increasingly brutal measures. As he investigates, he discovers a supernatural force at the island’s core: an imprisoned goddess whose blood and suffering the cult has been exploiting to keep their crops alive. Some of the scariest moments include the cult’s violent nighttime purges, the discovery of bodies ground into fertilizer, and the first appearance of the weakened goddess chained in a dark, hidden chamber.
As the cult fractures, a power struggle erupts between Malcolm and more extreme followers who want full control of the goddess. Thomas frees his sister and confronts the cult’s sadistic enforcer, leading to one of the film’s most disturbing sequences involving archaic torture machinery. In the climax, the goddess begs Thomas to end her torment, and he kills her, triggering the collapse of the cult compound. Mortally wounded, Thomas urges his sister to escape. Apostle ends with Thomas dying on the island as vines rise from the soil around him, suggesting he becomes the land’s new supernatural guardian.
10. Oculus (2013)
Directed by Mike Flanagan, Oculus stars Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane, Annalise Basso, and Garrett Ryan Ewald. It was released in the year 2013.
Oculus follows adult siblings Kaylie and Tim Russell as they attempt to prove that an antique mirror – the Lasser Glass – was responsible for their parents’ violent deaths years earlier. Kaylie has spent years researching the mirror’s long trail of victims, all displaying the same patterns of hallucinations and psychological breakdowns. She sets up a controlled experiment with cameras and safety measures in their childhood home, determined to document the mirror’s influence. Tim, recently released from psychiatric care, initially rejects her belief in the supernatural but becomes increasingly convinced as the mirror begins manipulating their senses and environment.
As the experiment progresses, the mirror creates overlapping hallucinations, traps the siblings in false memories, and blurs the boundaries between past and present. Some of the film’s most frightening moments include Kaylie biting into what she thinks is an apple before realizing it’s a lightbulb, the mirror showing haunting visions of their mother as she deteriorated, and the siblings being unable to trust anything they see – including each other. In the climax, the mirror deceives Tim into triggering the device meant to destroy it, resulting in Kaylie’s death and making Tim appear responsible. Oculus ends with Tim arrested again and the mirror intact, continuing its cycle of manipulation and destruction.
9. Secret Window (2004)
Directed by David Koepp, Secrets Window stars Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton and Charles S. Dutton. It was released in the year 2004.
Secret Window follows author Mort Rainey, who retreats to a lakeside cabin after a painful divorce and worsening writer’s block. His isolation is shattered when a stranger named John Shooter accuses him of stealing his story and demands justice. Mort insists the work is his own, but escalating incidents – including his dog being killed and his ex-wife’s house being burned down – suggest Shooter is willing to use violence. Mort hires a private investigator, yet every new piece of evidence only makes Shooter’s identity harder to pin down. The film’s scariest moments come from Shooter’s sudden appearances, the discovery of Mort’s dog’s body, and the tense standoff in which Shooter kills the investigator.
As the story progresses, Mort begins losing his grip on reality. Eventually it is revealed that Shooter is not real – he is an alternate personality created by Mort’s psychological breakdown, and Mort himself committed the murders and acts of sabotage. When Mort fully slips into the Shooter persona, he murders his ex-wife and her new partner, burying them in the garden. Secret Window ends with Mort behaving calmly but disturbingly detached, while the local sheriff quietly suggests the truth will eventually come out.
8. Black Swan (2010)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan stars Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Winona Ryder. It was released in the year 2010.
Black Swan follows Nina Sayers, a talented but emotionally fragile ballerina cast in the dual role of the White Swan and Black Swan in a new production of Swan Lake. Pressured by her controlling mother and pushed by director Thomas Leroy to access a darker, more uninhibited side, Nina becomes increasingly paranoid about newcomer Lily, whom she views as a rival. As rehearsals intensify, Nina begins experiencing disturbing hallucinations, including seeing doppelgängers of herself, imagining Lily threatening her, and witnessing her own body distort. Some of the film’s scariest moments include her reflection moving independently, her skin appearing to peel away, and her legs bending unnaturally during a rehearsal.
By opening night, Nina’s mental state has fully deteriorated. She believes she kills Lily during a violent confrontation in her dressing room, only to later realise she stabbed herself while hallucinating the attack. Despite the injury, she performs the role to critical perfection, hallucinating herself transforming into the Black Swan onstage. After finishing the final act as the White Swan, she collapses backstage with a fatal wound. Her final words, “I was perfect,” mark the culmination of her psychological breakdown and leave the ending open to interpretation.
7. Us (2019)
Directed by Jordan Peele, Us stars Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker. It was released in the year 2019.
Us follows the Wilson family as they return to Adelaide’s childhood vacation spot, where she is plagued by memories of a traumatic encounter in a funhouse. One night, a group of doppelgängers – known as the Tethered – appears outside their home and forces their way inside. Led by Adelaide’s double, Red, the attackers mirror each family member and begin a violent assault. Some of the scariest moments include the Tethered silently standing in the driveway, Red speaking in her broken, rasping voice, and the sudden realisation that similar home-invasion murders are happening across the country as other families are attacked by their own doubles.
As the Wilsons fight back, Adelaide discovers the Tethered are part of an abandoned government cloning experiment forced to live underground. Red has organised them into a violent uprising, forming a massive human chain across America. In the final confrontation, Adelaide kills Red in the tunnels and escapes with her family. The twist reveals that Adelaide was actually the Tethered version all along – she was swapped with the real Adelaide as a child in the funhouse. Us ends with Adelaide’s son, Jason, watching her with suspicion, suggesting he realises the truth.
6. The Ring (2002)
Directed by Gore Verbinski, The Ring stars Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, and Brian Cox. It was released in the year 2002.
The Ring is a supernatural horror film about a cursed videotape that kills anyone who watches it exactly seven days later. After a teenager dies under mysterious circumstances, journalist Rachel Keller investigates and discovers the urban legend surrounding the tape is real. She watches it herself, receives a phone call marking her seven-day countdown, and begins uncovering the history of Samara Morgan – a troubled child whose psychic abilities tormented her adoptive parents. Rachel and her ex-partner Noah track the curse to a remote island and learn Samara was thrown into a well and left to die. Rachel believes freeing Samara’s body will end the curse.
Instead, their actions unleash something far worse. The scariest moments include Samara’s unnerving appearance in grainy footage, the distorted faces of the cursed victims, the eerie phone call announcing “seven days,” and the final sequence where Samara crawls out of the television to kill Noah. Realizing the curse only lifts if the viewer copies the tape and makes someone else watch it, Rachel helps her son Aidan survive by duplicating it – suggesting the cycle will continue as long as people pass it on.
5. Mother! (2017)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky, Mother! stars Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, and Michelle Pfeiffer. It was released in the year 2017.
Mother! follows a couple living in an isolated house: a poet suffering from writer’s block and his younger wife, known only as Mother, who is restoring their home. Their quiet life unravels when uninvited guests begin arriving, starting with a mysterious man and woman who behave as though they belong in the house. As more strangers appear, the home becomes increasingly chaotic, and Mother loses control while her husband welcomes the attention because it fuels his creativity.
The situation spirals into surreal, nightmarish territory as the house fills with followers who worship the poet. Mother becomes pregnant, but the crowd becomes violent and destructive, treating her child as a ritual offering. In one of the film’s most shocking moments, the mob kills the newborn and consumes his remains. Devastated, Mother sets the house on fire, destroying everyone inside. The poet survives and uses Mother’s dying body to create a new “heart” for the house – revealing the film’s allegorical cycle, with another woman awakening in the rebuilt home as the cycle begins again.
4. The Empty Man (2020)
Directed by David Prior, The Empty Man stars James Badge Dale, Marin Ireland, Stephen Root, Ron Canada, Robert Aramayo, Joel Courtney, and Sasha Frolova. It was released in the year 2020.
The Empty Man follows ex-detective James Lasombra as he investigates the disappearance of a teenager named Amanda. His search leads him to a local urban legend about summoning the Empty Man by blowing into a bottle on a bridge, as well as the Pontifex Institute – an esoteric cult that believes a cosmic entity is trying to enter the world. As James follows clues, he encounters increasingly disturbing scenes, including the corpses of Amanda’s friends arranged ritualistically in a cabin, a warehouse full of cult members silently swaying in the dark, and hallucinations of a creature stalking him from the shadows. Each discovery suggests the Empty Man is real – and that James is being pulled deeper into something supernatural.
James eventually learns the cult has been using him as part of a long-running ritual. The scariest revelation occurs when he discovers hospital files proving he was created by the cult only three days earlier as a temporary vessel, not a real person with a past. In the climax, James comes face-to-face with the true Empty Man – an emaciated, otherworldly figure – and the entity transfers itself into him. The cult kneels, declaring James the new Empty Man. The film ends with James fully overtaken, completing the cult’s plan and erasing whatever identity he thought he had.
3. Midsommar (2019)
Directed by Ari Aster, Midsommar stars Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Ellora Torchia, Archie Madekwe, and Will Poulter. It was released in the year 2019.
Midsommar follows Dani, a young woman reeling from the murder-suicide of her family, who joins her distant boyfriend Christian and his friends on a trip to a remote Swedish commune called Hårga. What begins as a cultural research visit quickly turns unsettling. The group witnesses the ättestupa ceremony, where two elders leap to their deaths as part of a ritual – one of the film’s most disturbing moments. As the days pass, Dani’s friends start disappearing under suspicious circumstances, psychedelic drugs are used to keep everyone compliant, and the commune’s rituals grow increasingly violent, including a scene where a villager’s head is smashed with a mallet to complete the ättestupa.
As the midsummer festival builds toward its climax, Dani is crowned May Queen, solidifying her emotional bond with the commune. Christian, meanwhile, is drugged and coerced into a fertility ritual. In the final and most frightening sequence, Christian is paralyzed, stitched into a bear carcass, and burned alive inside a ceremonial temple along with other sacrifices. Dani watches the burning structure, first devastated, then breaking into a calm smile – suggesting she has fully accepted the Hårga as her new family, leaving her old life behind.
2. The Witch (2015)
Directed by Robert Eggers, The Witch stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, and Lucas Dawson. It was released in the year 2015.
The Witch follows a 1630s Puritan family exiled to the edge of a remote forest, where their newborn son Samuel mysteriously vanishes under the watch of teenage daughter Thomasin. The audience sees the truth: a witch abducts and kills the baby. As the family struggles with crop failure and growing religious paranoia, more frightening events unfold. Some of the scariest moments include Caleb’s encounter with a witch who lures him into her hut, his later return home naked and violently convulsing before dying, and the twins claiming the family’s black goat, Black Phillip, speaks to them.
As suspicion and hysteria grow, the family turns against Thomasin. William is killed after Black Phillip suddenly gores him, and Katherine, driven mad with grief, attacks Thomasin, who kills her in self-defense. Now alone, Thomasin asks Black Phillip to speak – and he does. He convinces her to sign a pact and join him. The Witch ends with Thomasin entering the forest, where she joins a coven of witches rising into the air, confirming the supernatural forces that destroyed her family were real.
1. The Ritual (2017)
Directed by David Bruckner, The Ritual stars Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, and Sam Troughton. It was released in the year 2017.
The Ritual follows four friends – Luke, Dom, Hutch, and Phil – who take a hiking trip in the Swedish wilderness to honor a friend who recently died. After Dom injures his knee, they cut through a dense forest where unsettling things begin happening. They find a mutilated elk hanging in the trees, strange runes carved into the woods, and a cabin containing an effigy with human-like features. One of the scariest moments occurs when all four men experience violent nightmares their first night inside the cabin, and Phil is found naked and praying to the effigy without remembering how he got there. As they continue, they become convinced they are being stalked by something moving through the trees.
The group is hunted by a massive creature connected to ancient Norse mythology – a Jötunn linked to the god Loki. It kills Hutch and Phil, leaving Luke and Dom to fend for themselves. The two are eventually captured by a rural cult that worships the creature, believing it grants them unnaturally long life. In the film’s most disturbing sequence, Dom is sacrificed to the creature and killed. Luke escapes, sets the cult temple on fire, and injures the monster enough to break away from the forest. The Ritual ends with Luke reaching safety, traumatized but alive, while the creature howls from deep within the woods.
Have you seen any of these Horror Movies?
Have you seen any of these unnaturally dark horror movies? Which horror movies would you have added to this list?
Let me know in the comments.
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