【auto eroticism erotic】

This post contains spoilers for the ending of Hereditary.

At face value,auto eroticism erotic Hereditary works as an elegant genre film about the occult. But on a subtextual level, even the most supernatural scenes in the film speak to the raw realities of being a family possessed by grief.

Director Ari Aster told Mashable that initially, he "described [Hereditary] not as a horror film, but as a family tragedy that looks into a nightmare — but in the way that life is a nightmare when disaster strikes. Especially in succession.”

SEE ALSO: The traumatic family horror of 'Hereditary' scarred me for life

Maybe the experience of family dysfunction and death is so monstrous that we can only face it through the lens of a genre that houses our greatest ghouls and demons. Because, as Aster said, "What happens to this family is inherently horrific, even if you strip away all the supernatural elements."

The horror of Charlie's death has nothing to do with King Paimon. It's more horrifying to view the accident as the outcome of a well-meaning but overbearing mother's actions. Or an (understandably) inebriated brother's panicked reactions. Or, in actuality, just the sheer, dumb bad luck of not having an EpiPen.

It's horrific because it reveals just how mundane death really is. The true nightmare of Hereditaryis the sense that -- demonic cult withstanding -- this could happen to anyone. Deathdoes happen to us all.

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Arguably, every instance of the paranormalcan be interpreted as an eerily recognizable allegory for the agony of familial loss, disease, and destruction. And here's exactly how Hereditaryuses the supernatural to immerse us in grief -- these horrors that are all too real, and way too close to home.

1. You really do start seeing the dead everywhere

This common, documented psychological side effect of grief might sound ghoulish. But it's real. Grief literally takes over your senses and perception, making you see things that just aren't there.

The horror of funerals lies in the banal.

So you see the face of your dead on everyone who looks even remotely like them. It doesn't even have to be a person, really: even vague shapes and figures can resurrect them in your mind's eye.

Hereditarycaptures this natural reaction in the way Annie sees her mother in darkened corners of her studio. Appropriately, it's Peter who is so racked with so much guilt that he can see his sister's decapitated head in the form of a rolling basketball.

2. The mundane terrors of a funeral

If you think funerals are for the grieving, you've never been the grieving family at one. Because the last thing anyone wants to do after losing family is organize an event where you face their corpse in public and put on a show for people around it.

The true horror of funerals lies in the banal.

I saw my own experiences reflected in the smallest details of Hereditary, like Annie tiredly reading her mother's obituary from a yellow notepad usually reserved for to-do lists. Then there's the worry you're not selling your performance well enough: "Should I be sadder?" she asks her husband.

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There's also the stomach-churning fact of the body. Charlie notices someone touch her grandmother's dead lips, and those little moments remind you that everyone's mourning over dead matter, not the person you once loved.

The body is just a thing, filled with formaldehyde and caked-on make up.

3. You need to compartmentalize death

One of the most clever visual allegories for grief is Annie's obsessively detailed miniature models. Her mother and Charlie are not the first losses Annie has experienced. It's revealed that her father horrifically starved to death and her brother killed himself.

SEE ALSO: The comfort of watching 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' while grieving

That might explain why she is so compelled to recreate scenes of trauma of people she lost, and then put them neatly in a compartmentalized dollhouse. Sometimes, you need to put your trauma in a box and either destroy it or put it away just to survive.

That's not what grief counselors will tell you to do. But by compartmentalizing, you also, in some ways, keep them frozen in time, and in spaces you can return to when you miss them.

4. The inheritance of trauma

Ultimately, the movie reveals that Grandma Ellen wasn't just a withholding mother. She was a witch, or demon worshipper, passing down this demon from generation to generation.

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While this appears to come out of left field, it's also a concept based in reality and science. Transgenerational trauma has been observed in many families who suffer through events that cause serious PTSD side effects. NPR recently released a story on how this is particularly true of families born into cultures that have survived near-erasure and colonialism.

And we're not just talking about psychological repercussions. Inherited trauma is believed to be transferred through our very DNA.

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Annie's family clearly has a history of not only trauma, but also hereditary mental illness. The "demon" the family keeps passing on can be seen as the unaddressed traumas of death and disease that they keep trying to bury.

But ultimately, it only destroys the kids, leaving them unprepared for what comes for them.

5. Don't assume that "they're still here" is comforting

People think the rote phrase that the person who died "is still with you" should be comforting. But for many, it is not. They are gone. Trying to tell a grieving family otherwise can be almost an insult -- an invitation to give into dangerous delusions.

You lose yourself to the complete absence of meaning that is grief.

One of the most eerily recognizable scenes in the movie is Joan's (Ann Dowd) exuberant conviction that their loved ones are still there. Annie's simultaneously horrified and awed reaction to the séance embodies the conflicted relationship that the grieving can have with this common platitude.

Part of you desperately wants to believe it's true. The other part of you is terrified that it is true -- that you will never be able to escape this loss. It will haunt you, until you die with it.

5. You inspect death like a detective

Another telling use of Annie's miniature models comes in the scene where her husband discovers that she's recreated Charlie's accident, decapitated head and all. Her reasoning is that she needed a "neutral view of the accident."

He doesn't buy it. But obsessively retracing the moments leading up to a loved one's death is another very normal reaction.

When faced with the unknowability of death, you turn to hard facts. You cannot comprehend the loss, no matter how hard you try. But you doknow the coroner's report stated that they died at this exact time, or in that specific stretch of road.

Whatever it is, you need to repeat those facts over and over again. Otherwise you lose yourself to the complete absence of meaning that is grief.

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6. The "magical thinking" of grief makes you crazy

InThe Year of Magical Thinking, famed writer Joan Didion recounts her mental state while grieving her husband. Magical thinking is a term psychologists use to describe the irrationality of a mind in the throes of bereavement, but Didion take it a step further.

She describes grief as quite literally a period of temporary mental illness or insanity. Your rational brain knows its ridiculous to keep your dead husband's shoes, but you are also absolutely certain that he will come back. That what happened is reversible.

Grief plays cruel tricks that only you can see. You start to see signs, cryptic messages only you could possibly interpret as significant. If you told anyone about these, they'd call you crazy. Hell, you'repretty sure you'recrazy

That's what makes the descent of the Graham family so eerily recognizable. Sure, the signs (like a lingering shot on apartment 202) eventually lead to a real conspiracy and demon. But that bloodbath is arguably true to life as well. The turn away from reality in the movie is in itself an allegory.

7. Family members need to see the deceased in each other

The last few scenes of Hereditaryappear to turn toward a straightforward explanation. But there's an interpretation of Peter turning into Charlie that's also about familial grief.

"Sometimes people don’t recover from tragedies."

When someone in the family dies, other members of the family need to resurrect the deceased in each other. Sisters and brothers can take on more of the role or traits of the lost sibling, while parents might start to see the personality of their dead child in their living children.

Annie (seemingly possessed by a demon) propagates Peter's transition into Charlie. Throughout, she states that he should have died instead of her.

Because in some ways, she needs to believe her daughter is still alive somewhere inside her son.

8. Families don't always make it out of a tragedy alive

One of the most strikingly realistic elements of Hereditaryis its admission that grief is not always survivable.

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"There’s this pervasive trend in stories of domestic tragedies, especially in America: A family suffers a loss and they go through this tumultuous phase, communication breaks down, they suffer, they turn against each other a little," said Aster. "But then, ultimately, this ordeal strengthens their bonds, and they’re going to be OK."

That's not how it always happens. Actually, that's not how it happens most of the time.

Aster doesn't view that version of a story about grief as inherently "false." But also in his movie, he wanted to show how, "Sometimes people aretaken down. Sometimes people don’t recover from tragedies."

Some monsters are too big to overcome. Sometimes you lose your head to grief. Sometimes, in the despair of mourning, you say and do things you can't ever take back.

It's a hard truth. But it's a truth we need to face before the lies damn us to an eternally hellish nightmare.

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