What actually happens
A funeral with a surprising guest list
Annie Graham builds miniatures for a living and lives in northern Utah with her husband Steve, a psychiatrist, and their two kids, sixteen-year-old Peter and thirteen-year-old Charlie. The movie opens at the funeral of Annie's mother, Ellen, who she was never close to, and Annie is surprised by how many people turn up to mourn her. Charlie takes the death hardest. She goes quiet, worries out loud about who will look after her when Annie dies, and at school she snips the head off a dead bird and keeps it in her pocket. At a grief support group, Annie admits that she and her mother didn't get along, although Ellen took a sudden interest in raising Charlie. Meanwhile someone vandalizes Ellen's grave, and Steve decides Annie doesn't need to hear about it.
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The scene everyone warned you about
Peter gets invited to a party, and Annie makes him take Charlie along. He leaves her on her own, and she eats a slice of cake with walnuts in it. Charlie has a severe nut allergy. Peter drives her toward the hospital while she leans out of the window trying to breathe, and when he swerves to miss a dead deer on the road, Charlie is decapitated by a telephone pole. That's the scene people warn each other about. Peter drives home in shock, tells nobody, and leaves her body in the back of the car, where Annie finds it the next morning.
Grief group, now with séances
After the funeral the house splits into sides. Peter is wrecked with guilt, Annie can barely look at him, and Steve spends his days trying to keep the peace. Annie befriends Joan, a warm woman from her support group, who says she has been talking to her dead grandson Louie and offers to show Annie how. Joan's one rule is that the whole family has to be there, so Annie wakes Peter and Steve in the middle of the night and holds a séance. Objects move, Annie starts speaking in Charlie's voice, and Steve ends it by throwing water on her. After that, Peter is the one being haunted. Annie decides Charlie's spirit has turned vengeful, especially once Charlie's sketchbook fills with drawings that all involve Peter. When Annie throws the sketchbook into the fireplace her own clothes catch fire, and they only stop burning when she pulls the book back out.
Grandma's photo albums
Going through Ellen's things, Annie finds a photo album that shows her mother as "Queen Leigh," the head of a coven, with Joan among her followers. Another book describes Paimon, a demon king who rewards whoever summons him with wealth and knowledge and would rather live in a male body. Then Annie finds Ellen herself in the attic, headless and rotting, surrounded by symbols drawn in blood. Joan turns out to be exactly as friendly as a coven recruiter needs to be. She stands across the street from Peter's school and tries to force him out of his own body, and in class Peter slams his face into his desk hard enough to break his nose. Annie tells Steve everything and begs him to burn the sketchbook, and Steve decides his wife has lost her mind.
The ending, explained
Steve won't burn the sketchbook, so Annie throws it in the fire herself, and Steve bursts into flames in her place. Whatever has been working on Peter takes over Annie. Peter wakes after dark to find his father's charred body and naked coven members standing in and around the house. His possessed mother chases him up to the attic, where she cuts off her own head with piano wire. Peter escapes through the attic window, falls to the ground, and something enters his body. He follows Annie's floating corpse to Charlie's treehouse, where Joan and the coven are worshipping a mannequin wearing Charlie's crowned head, with the headless bodies of Annie and Ellen nearby. Joan moves the crown onto Peter, calls him Charlie, and then hails him as Paimon, explaining that the coven has corrected his female body. Nobody in the family survives in any way that counts, and the coven gets exactly what it wanted.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: not fine, and we're sorry.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Hereditary scary?
Yes, Hereditary is an 8 out of 10. There are a few jump scares, but most of the fear is slow, persistent dread built on grief, one infamous car scene and a reveal about the family that takes the whole movie.
How does Hereditary end?
Steve burns, Annie beheads herself with piano wire, and the coven crowns Peter's body as the demon king Paimon in Charlie's treehouse. Nobody in the Graham family survives intact.
Does the dog die in Hereditary?
Yes, the dog dies in Hereditary. It happens off-screen, and the camera shows the aftermath only for a moment, which is more ceremony than the movie gives most of its characters.
Is there a post-credits scene in Hereditary?
No. Hereditary has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Who is Paimon in Hereditary?
Paimon is the demon king that Annie's mother Ellen worshipped as the leader of a coven. In Hereditary he wants a male body, and the coven spends the movie arranging for him to get Peter's.
