Milly Shapiro May Have Won Halloween for 2023

The whole Internet is on point this Halloween, but Milly Shapiro may have already beaten everyone for best costume.

Shaprio dressed up as Marie Antoinette and danced to Heads Will Roll by the yeahyeahyeahs.

That would be amazing on its own, but it’s especially ironic given her previous roles as an actress.

Shapiro is best known for her roles as Matilda in the Broadway run of Matilda the Musical, and for her role in Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018). It’s the latter role that makes her costume especially ironic, as the most shocking and upsetting moment of the film is when Shapiro’s character is accidentally beheaded.

It’s a scene that was incredibly shocking, as the onscreen death of children is still considered taboo for many horror films. Hereditary (2018) not only breaks the taboo but smashes it to pieces by setting that death in the first half of the film and then compounding the pain by showing us the aftermath of the head covered in ants after having been left outside overnight.

Milly Shapiro has said that she was eager to do her own stunts for the film, such as hanging out of the car from a harness. She also expressed an interest in keeping her fake severed head as a macabre souvenir of the film. The fact that Shapiro is dressing as Marie Antoinette indicates that she is deliberately calling back to that role, as well as the impact it had on her and the genre of horror on the whole.

Well done, Ms. Shapiro. You re-traumatized us after 5 years. I’m gonna go rewatch Hereditary with all the lights on now.

(featured image: A24)