What Does the End of Hereditary Mean?
Confused About the End of Hereditary? Here's Our Best Guess at What It Means
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Even if all of that does check out, there are still a few things I find confusing. For one, I'm perplexed by Steve's death. When Annie tries to burn Charlie's sketchbook early on in the film, her arm catches fire. So why does Steve burn up and die when Annie throws it into the fire later?
There's also a lot of mystery around Annie's mother. We're ultimately not sure how she dies, although it's mentioned she suffered from dementia. Does she sacrifice herself as part of the process to please Paimon? And who digs her up and puts her in the Graham family attic? And why are there so many decapitations? Is that an important part of the ritual?
Though I can speculate, Annie's involvement in the cult is ultimately unclear. Was she aware of it when she was younger? Was she a part of some kind of "deal" with Paimon? Did the rest of the family know about Grandma's side hustle?
Anyway, now that I've spent far too much time wondering about this horrifying movie, I'm going to take a nap. If I can ever get that burning image of Charlie's severed head out of my memories.