“My mother was a very secretive and private woman,” Annie (Toni Collette) eulogizes in the trailer for “Hereditary.” “She was a very difficult woman, which maybe explains me.”

The strained relationship between Annie and her late mother, Ellen, weighs heavily on everyone in Ari Aster’s feature directorial debut. While Annie muses about her mom’s “private rituals [and] private friends,” her daughter (Milly Shapiro) becomes obsessed with death, and her son (Alex Wolff) starts experiencing intense, inexplicable seizures. Is it possible that Ellen’s ghost is haunting the family? Or did the matriarch pass down some terrible, all too real genetic trait that’s just now expressing itself?

In 2000 Collette received an Oscar nomination for her supporting role in “The Sixth Sense.” Her other credits include “United States of Tara,” “Enough Said,” and “Fun Mom Dinner.” Collette is currently filming “Wanderlust,” a family drama from Netflix and BBC One.

Ann Dowd (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) and Gabriel Byrne (“In Treatment”) also star in “Hereditary.” The Sundance breakout hits theaters June 8.