Miniature artist Annie Graham (Toni Colette) loses her mother and is surprised at the number of mourners that turn up at the funeral. She goes for grief counseling telling her husband that she is going to the movies. But why? I wonder. Her husband seems like a reasonable person and someone she counts on. No one would say “no” to her going to counseling.

The couple have two kids – a teenage boy, Peter (Alex Wolffe), and a younger daughter, Charlie (Milly Shapiro). The daughter is shown as being eccentric to the point where she is shown cutting the head of a dead pigeon and attaching it to a doll. She was close to her grandmother and is strongly affected by the latter’s death. The boy is navigating high school and is looking to impress the girl he likes. To achieve this, he plans to go to a party (with weed no less). His mother forces him to take his sister. Again, why? In what world does it make sense to send a little girl to a high school party? Inspite of her son stating that his sister will likely be on her own and he won’t be able to watch over her, she lets both go.

As expected, Charlie is left to her own devices, navigating a party where she knows no one. Eating cake that has nuts, it triggers her allergy. The brother decides to drive her to a hospital. A freak accident on the drive to get medical help causes Charlie to die in one of the most horrific ways possible.

The whole sequence of events leading to her death was extremely frustrating to watch. Aside from the mother and son not having the common sense to stop a kid from attending a high school party, who doesn’t keep an epi-pen handy when they know the kid is allergic. A party with 50+ teens and the brother can’t even ask if anyone has an Epi-pen? He decides to drive to a hospital that is many miles away.

A woman, Joan (Ann Dowd), approaches Annie at the parking lot of the grievance meeting to say that she was also part of the group and befriends her. She later says, she found a medium who helped her reconnect with her deceased grandson. Seeing the results in person, Annie decides to try this at home. She hopes to speak with her daughter through this process. She shares her attempts with her husband and son, fracturing an already tense household.

Strange events occur, like new drawings on the sketchbook that Charlie used. A deviant force takes over Peter and slams his head on to the desk at school. His father, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), picks him up.

The story takes on convoluted turns with Annie realizing that her mother was the Queen of a coven of whom Joan was also a part of. The bizarre events keep going on. There are naked people emerging from the shadows. People drop dead like flies and I mean, even the main characters – for no apparent reason. Seems like the writers thought, “We introduced witchcraft. All deaths need no further explanation.”

The coven has a new leader – Peter. He is the demon himself – King Paimon, who wanted to inhabit a male body. Zero runway for introducing the demon lord, no clear motives for the coven – all of this is just shoved down the audience throats. Disgusting, disjointed and distasteful – pretty much sums up my feelings after watching this.

There are a few jump scares, but to call this movie a horror, would be a stretch. The characters behave strangely and seem to be devoid of rational thinking. A weak story that seems like patchwork can’t weave sense into the movie.

This is one movie I wouldn’t recommend. Even if you were stuck in a long trans oceanic flight with no other movie to watch, I would suggest you catch up on your sleep rather than go through Hereditary.

I would like to go with 0 stars (if such a rating was possible)