Cert 15 127mins Stars 4

There’s a demonic creepiness to this slow burning supernatural horror which doubles as a tormented exploration of a very dysfunctional family.

Aussie actress Toni Collette gives an Oscar-worthy performance as a woman being torn apart by fear, grief and the pressures of parenting.

Her daughter has some very disturbing habits, her son has some serious issues and her mother is recently deceased but remains a malign influence. 

With echoes of 1968 classic, Rosemary’s Baby, this is an extraordinarily stylish and self-assured debut by director, Ari Aster, who seems to want to punish more than entertain us.

Intense, anxious, bleak and deeply unsettling rather than scary, Aster deliberately avoids the crowd pleasing thrills of the recent and more easily enjoyable horror, A Quiet Place, and he seems intent on shocking us into submission.

Hereditary has proved hugely divisive in the US, due in part to its controversial ending, but you’d best see it to make up your own mind. If you dare.