Forget ‘Imagine,’ These Quarantined Friends Remade Toni Collette’s ‘Hereditary’ Breakdown

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Gal Gadot and her celebrity friends in quarantine made headlines for all the wrong reasons last week with their cringe-worthy cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The video generated widespread scorn across the internet, but it at least did one good thing by inspiring Los Angeles filmmaker and performer Austin S. Williams to put his own spin on the format. Williams dropped “Imagine” in favor of Toni Collette’s searing monologue from “Hereditary” in which she lashes out at her son at dinner. Williams’ video is so perfect that it even got the blessing of “Hereditary” distributor A24, which re-shared the video on its social media pages. The clip has earned over 1 million views and counting.

For those who don’t remember, Collette’s monologues is as follows: “Don’t you swear at me, you little shit! Don’t you ever raise your voice at me! I am your mother! You understand? All I do is worry and slave and defend you, and all I get back is that fucking face on your face! So full of disdain and resentment and always so annoyed! Well, now your sister is dead! And I know you miss her and I know it was an accident and I know you’re in pain and I wish could take that away for you. I wish I could shield you from the knowledge that you did what you did, but you’re sister is dead! She’s gone forever!”

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“And what a waste,” the speech continues. “If it could’ve maybe brought us together, or something, if you could’ve just said ‘I’m sorry’ or faced up to what happened, maybe then we could do something with this, but you can’t take responsibility for anything! So, now I can’t accept. And I can’t forgive. Because…because nobody admits anything they’ve done!”

“Hereditary” is now streaming on Amazon Prime. Check out Williams’ parody in the clip below.

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