Hereditary director reveals an HOUR of gruelling horror was cut – too scary for cinemas?

It’s not unusual for movies to have a few deleted scenes that end up on the cutting room floor, but the new Toni Collette-fronted horror has almost 60 whole minutes’ worth that will go unseen in cinemas.

But rather than it being even more terrifying moments, writer and director Ari Aster has explained that actually it was some rich family drama that had to go.

“I wanted the film to work as a family drama,” he told GameSpot.

“I needed to attend to the family dynamics and build a pretty vivid history for them.”

But when the first cut of the film was three hours’ long, he realised a lot of it had to go.

“There were about 30 scenes that were on the cutting room floor, and all of those are drama scenes,” he revealed.

“We took more time originally to develop these people.”

What is left has been received incredibly well by critics – and now it could challenge A Quiet Place and Veronica to be the most talked-about frightfest of 2018.

At time of writing it has an outstanding 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus reading: “Hereditary uses its classic setup as the framework for a harrowing, uncommonly unsettling horror film whose cold touch lingers long beyond the closing credits.”

Variety said: “Collette’s performance is staggering. She plays Annie as a woman who begins to wear her buried rage and guilt on the outside.”

“A harrowing story of unthinkable family tragedy that veers into the realm of the supernatural, Hereditary takes its place as a new generation’s The Exorcist,” Time Out agreed. “For some, it will spin heads even more savagely.”

The Hollywood Reporter concurred: “Hereditary takes the core haunting element of a spirit with a malevolent agenda and runs with it in a seemingly endless series of unexpected directions over two breathless hours of escalating terror that never slackens for a minute.”

Collette stars alongside Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd and Gabriel Byrne.

Hereditary is out on June 15 in the UK.