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August 14, 2025Exploring “Hereditary,” “The Lodge,” and the Myth of the Cursed Family Tree
“We are the clay that remembers its mold.”
— The Uncanny Professor
There’s something uniquely dreadful about a family secret. Not a scandal, but a curse—an invisible presence passed down in blood, not in memory. The horror genre, more than any other, understands this psychic inheritance. It doesn’t just ask what is wrong—it asks who made us this way?
Two recent films—Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018) and Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala’s The Lodge (2019)—articulate a bone-deep fear: that we are doomed not by our choices, but by our genes, our ancestors, and the unseen rituals performed long before we were born.
And maybe, just maybe, that curse carries a surname.
“It’s in Your Blood”
Hereditary doesn’t waste time with ambiguity. From its title to its final shot, the film tells you flat-out: this is about what you inherit. Not just houses, chin shapes, and mental illness—but entire cosmologies. Toni Collette’s character, Annie, is an artist who creates tiny dioramas of domestic scenes. She crafts perfect little replicas of trauma—as if trying to control the chaos by recreating it. But what she cannot recreate is the pact her own mother made, nor the forces that have already chosen her son, Peter, for something older, colder, and inhuman.
By the end of the film, we realize: Peter was never a protagonist. He was a vessel. He never stood a chance.
The horror here is fatalism—and it’s religious in scope. You are not a blank slate. You are a continuation. A bloodline. A chosen lineage. And the dark gods your family served have been waiting for you since before your birth.
“You Have to Be Willing to Let Go”
In The Lodge, the question of inherited evil is refracted through trauma, indoctrination, and mental illness. The central figure, Grace, is the daughter of a cult leader—seemingly “rescued” but never truly freed. Her past returns with cold vengeance when she becomes the caretaker for two children in an isolated winter home.
What makes The Lodge so devastating is its ambiguity. Is Grace re-enacting the trauma she inherited? Is she possessed by her father’s teachings? Or are the children gaslighting her into madness? In the end, it doesn’t matter—the legacy of evil plays out regardless of who is actively pulling the strings. The house becomes a tomb for unresolved ancestral madness. The sins of the father—literal and symbolic—demand their sacrifice.
Inherited Evil: Psychological or Spiritual?
Let’s step back. Are we talking metaphysics here, or psychology?
Epigenetics tells us that trauma can be passed down biologically—certain markers activated not by our experience, but by the experience of those before us. Holocaust survivors, abused children, war victims—all leave genetic scars on their offspring. Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious takes it a step further: the archetypes we inherit may be ancient, symbolic, and even autonomous.
But horror cinema doesn’t always care whether these curses are “real” or imagined. It’s the uncertainty that rattles us. Are we living our lives, or are we acting out inherited scripts? Is free will just a polite fiction passed around at Thanksgiving?
Families That Shouldn’t Reproduce
Sometimes, the fear is less poetic. More… contemporary.
Let’s say there was a family whose public image masked a generational pattern of narcissism, cruelty, or the wielding of power without empathy. Suppose their patriarch was raised on authoritarian adoration and passed that performative dominance onto his children like a twisted heirloom. Suppose that instead of summoning demons, this family summoned attention, wealth, and control—and shaped the world in their own image.
Would that not be a form of inherited evil, too?
Wouldn’t that be just as terrifying as Paimon?
Closing Thoughts from the Uncanny Professor
Horror films remind us that we are not born blank. We carry blood, memory, myth. We inherit trauma, beliefs, demons—sometimes literally. The family tree isn’t just wood and leaves. It’s firewood, waiting for the match.
So when you feel the tug of old pain, or watch a nation make the same mistakes in a newer, shinier mask—pause.
Ask yourself:
Is this me?
Or is this something that lives in my blood?
And then—turn on a light. Or don’t.
After all, they’re used to the dark.