Yellow in Horror – Ari Aster’s Use of Lighting in Hereditary

Chapter 3

When I rewatched Hereditary recently I knew it needed its own discussion. If you follow my blog even a little, you’ve probably heard me talk endlessly about the immense talent I see in writer and director Ari Aster. The man has made two of my favorite horror movies that also happen to be comfort movies. Yes, Hereditary is one of those films.

The first thing I noticed upon rewatching this film is that the lighting within the house turns almost everything it touches yellow. This is especially true for Toni Collette’s clothing. She often wears white or beige colored shirts, but when she is under one of the home’s lights, the garments appear yellow. A sickly, off-putting type of yellow. The color of puss. Of sickness. It seems to get worse as the film progresses. There is no doubt that this is intentional on Aster’s part since he intentionally over exposed scenes in Midsommar to make them more menacing.

I also love the use of miniatures in the film. Since Annie (Toni Collette’s character) is an artist who creates miniatures in great detail, it is no surprise that Ari Aster filmed many interior scenes to mimic the look of a miniature. I often pause the film in certain places because its hard to tell if he filmed it on the actual set or if he used a miniature. It adds to the eerie feel of the film making the viewer wonder what is real. This is especially true because Annie and Peter often wake up not knowing what was going on. True filmmaking art to keep the audience on their edge of their seats.

Charlie, the daughter who is accidentally beheaded when sticking her head out of a car whilst trying to get some fresh air, has a room at the end of the upstairs hall that has a small staircase you have to ascend to get into her room. There is one occasion after her death when this doorway is lit with yellow-orange light. Her mother is locking another door in the hallway and behind her lit by incandescent light, Charlie’s closed door. This isn’t a beckoning light. It’s guilt. After all, Charlie was the child that Annie let her mother take care of and Annie did let Charlie go to that party during which she went into anaphylaxis due to a peanut allergy. A mother’s guilt for not wanting her son and giving away her daughter. I think the lighting inside that house is just as much Annie’s depression over motherhood as it is other more sinister things.

The orange sweatshirt Charlie wears throughout the beginning of the film until her death is a livid shade of yellow that shows the darkness within. The hellish existence that lives inside her. The color of fire. It is why she is drawn to that treehouse with the heater that turns the windows red when it is on. Later, after Charlie is dead, Peter lies in bed staring out his window at this treehouse. The red light from the treehouse window is reflected in his eyes. He feels the darkness now too. A genius lighting trick in the middle of a relentless descent into the horrors of Satanic rituals.

Near the end we discover that Annie’s dead mother’s corpse is in the attic and has been for weeks. The yellow light that watches over the proceedings at the dinner table when Annie and Peter trade barbs over who is at fault for Charlie’s death turns their skin an infectious color. The light is an allegory for the rotting body in the attic, and for the internal decay of every member of this family.

Enter Ann Dowd as Joan, a friend of Annie’s mother. You’ll recognize Ann Down for so deftly playing Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale. Here, Dowd convinces Annie she has the family’s best interests at heart, but really, she is manipulating Annie into performing a ritual that will help Paimon find his way into Peter’s body. Paimon is one of the most powerful and sinister demons of hell and he had been residing in Charlie until he could find himself a male body.

Annie does her best to investigate further only to find that Joan knew her mother and they were part of a witch’s coven hell bent on bringing this Paimon into a human body. When Annie tries to burn her daughter’s sketchbook, something she thought her daughter was speaking to her from the grave through, it lights her arm on fire. Then, when she tries to burn it again, it burns her husband alive. Their living room is filled with sickly yellow light as the flames burn him, taking with him the last of her willpower and sanity. Annie gives in. Climbs the walls and ceilings like satanic Spiderman. Stabs herself in the neck so chaotically that you want to look away but you can’t, no more than Annie can stop herself from the stabbing that eventually beheads her.

Inside that house, the walls are painted yellows and olive greens. The constant existence of the cloying yellow light turns these walls to the color of infection and vomit. Illness within these walls. These people. Only when they are out of the house does the natural light of day make them look normal. Even then, though, Peter cannot escape it. Even in school Peter Paimon is always there clicking his tongue in Peter’s ear. There is no escape for Peter. Not in this film.

You still with me, friendly reader? Did I scare you off yet? I know I said this was one of my comfort movies and I’ll stand by that. Really, I love it more now that I’ve watched in with fresh eyes. This deep dive into the horror genre looking for how color is used in terms of the themes of these movies has made me appreciate them more. I hope the same for you.

As for Midsommar, it’ll appear later on in this blog series. Don’t think I have forgotten about it’s genius use of yellow.