The Sundance hit horror movie is kind of a tradition/subgenre unto itself: a indie scare picture that quietly debuts on the Midnight slate and scares the shit out of the fest’s critics and tastemakers, who stumble into the snow at two in the morning all abuzz with exhaustion and terror, beginning a hype cycle that winds down when the film finally debuts in theaters months later, where “real” horror fans sneer that it’s “not scary enough.”
This all basically began with The Blair Witch Project back at Sundance ’99; in recent years, titles like The Babadook and The Witch have taken the slot. This year’s title is Hereditary, Ari Aster’s story of an ancestry investigation gone horribly awry, which stars Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, and Ann Dowd, who appeared in approximately 87% of the films at Sundance this year.
A24, which did wonders with the art-house horror of The Witch (and had a bit less success, unfortunately, with It Comes at Night), is releasing the movie this summer, but they’ve wisely decided to put out the first trailer now and capitalize on that Sundance buzz. Check it out:
So, yeah, that looks creepy as hell, and a good reminder – as The Babadook and The Witch and so many other great horror movies have noted – that nothing is as terrifying as being a parent.
Hereditary is out on June 8th.