Much talked about horror film Hereditary was once three hours long before being cut down to its theatrical length of 2 hours 7 minutes.
Hereditary is the latest horror movie to be the talk of the town, adding to an increasingly long list of well received and highly watched recent releases in the genre.
Hereditary has been talked of as one of the scariest films in decades but did you know that it was once far longer in length? According to director Ari Aster in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the movie once had a whopping 30 additional scenes and ran for three hours.
“Nobody wants it to be a three-hour movie, especially the distributor,” Aster explained. “The most important thing was pacing and finding that rhythm. The movie tells you what it needs to be. This was the best version of the movie. But the part of you that mourns the missing scenes, tells you to announce that it was three-hours long.
“In the original cut, and in the script, the audience was forced to really stew … The breakdown of communication was chronicled in more pummeling detail.”
Have you seen Hereditary? Would you want to be subjugated to nearly another hour?
SEE ALSO: Read our review of Hereditary here
When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter’s family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited. Making his feature debut, writer-director Ari Aster unleashes a nightmare vision of a domestic breakdown that exhibits the craft and precision of a nascent auteur, transforming a familial tragedy into something ominous and deeply disquieting, and pushing the horror movie into chilling new terrain with its shattering portrait of heritage gone to hell.
Hereditary is set for release on June 8th in the U.S. and June 15th in the U.K.
Originally published June 13, 2018. Updated June 12, 2018.
