OVERLAY REPORT

In the 2018 film *Hereditary*, the most crucial action made by the lead character, **Annie Graham** (played by Toni Collette), is the **performance of a séance** to contact her deceased daughter, Charlie. This decision is the ultimate "point of no return" that seals the family's fate and fulfills the demonic ritual orchestrated by the cult of Paimon. ### The Action: The Séance After the traumatic decapitation of her daughter, Charlie, Annie is consumed by grief and guilt. She makes the pivotal decision to conduct a séance in her home, inviting her husband Steve and son Peter to participate. During this ritual, Annie chants specific incantations and uses a glass as a focal point. This action is crucial for several reasons: * **Inviting the Demon:** The séance serves as a "formal invitation" for the demon Paimon to enter the family’s inner sanctum. While the cult had already begun their work, Annie’s proactive choice to engage with the supernatural "opened the door" for Paimon to begin possessing Peter. * **Spiritual Vulnerability:** By conducting the ritual, Annie unknowingly binds her family to the spirit she believes is Charlie, but which is actually the demonic force looking for a male host. * **The Descent into Madness:** This act causes the immediate psychological and physical breakdown of the family unit, leading directly to Peter's self-harm at school and the eventual death of Steve. ### Who Helped Her: Joan Annie does not make this decision in a vacuum. She is manipulated and "helped" by **Joan** (Ann Dowd), a woman she meets at a grief support group. * **The Deception:** Joan presents herself as a sympathetic, fellow grieving grandmother who has successfully contacted her own dead grandson. * **The Instructions:** Joan provides Annie with the specific tools and instructions needed for the séance, including the words to chant. She stages a "demonstration" at her own apartment to prove to Annie that it works, intentionally using a "chalkboard writing" trick to fascinate and hook Annie. * **The Secret Identity:** Unknown to Annie, Joan is actually a high-ranking member (a "lieutenant") of the cult that was led by Annie's mother, Ellen Leigh. Her "help" was a calculated maneuver to trick Annie into completing the final stages of the ritual that the grandmother had planned for years. ### Specific Details and Consequences * **The Sketchbook:** During the séance, Annie’s action links her life force and the fate of her family to Charlie's sketchbook. Later, when she tries to "correct" her mistake by burning the book, it leads to the horrific death of her husband, as Joan’s instructions had effectively booby-trapped the family's survival efforts. * **The End Result:** The séance leads to Annie's own possession and her eventual suicide (decapitation), which provides the final necessary sacrifice to "liberate" Paimon from its previous vessel (Charlie) and allow it to inhabit the preferred male host: Peter. While the film suggests that the Graham family was doomed by "hereditary" fate from the start, **Annie's séance** is the specific, active choice that translates that abstract doom into a literal, demonic reality.