While Beau Is Afraid sees the visionary director Ari Aster return to screens for the first time since 2019, the A24 horror promises to be a lot more surreal than Midsommar or Hereditary. After the viral success of his disturbing short film, The Strange Thing About The Johnsons, director Ari Aster truly became a name to watch with 2018’s Hereditary. A slow-burn family drama that gradually morphed into a terrifying psychological horror, Hereditary marked Aster as one of the horror genre’s most interesting voices.
2019’s Midsommar was a trippier, stranger affair than Hereditary and, although both movies featured complex symbolism and imagery, Midsommar’s longer runtime and wonkier tone made it even odder than its predecessor. However, for all of Midsommar’s ridiculous flourishes, Aster’s next movie looks like it will up the surrealism aspect considerably. Beau Is Afraid, a decades-spanning hallucinatory odyssey that sees Joaquin Phoenix’s titular hero travel to visit his mother, looks a lot weirder than Hereditary or Midsommar. Judging by its trailer, Beau Is Afraid will be a mind-melting journey from the opening scene, whereas Aster’s earlier movies waited until later to lean into their surreal elements.
Why Beau Is Afraid Looks So Strange
From the intentionally artificial-looking theater sets that call to mind Lars Von Trier’s more experimental movies to the uncanny makeup and digital effects work put into aging and de-aging characters, Beau Is Afraid looks bizarre. The trailer is filled with harsh, otherworldly lighting and broad, cartoony performances, with unlikely characters actors like Nathan Lane and Richard Kind among the cast list. While little is known about the plot of Beau Is Afraid, Aster’s next movie has already promised odd images like Phoenix’s character chopping his way through a Disney-esque idyllic woodland setting, Beau aging into a decrepit old man, and even the title character glimpsing the lighting setup of the movie he’s living in.
Why Beau Is Afraid Is Such A Bizarre Movie
The synopsis of Beau Is Afraid promises “wild supernatural threats” plaguing the hero, and describes Phoenix’s eponymous character as an “extremely anxious man.” As such, Beau Is Afraid could be a horror that takes place in the lead character’s troubled mind throughout its story – unlike Hereditary and Midsommar which, in contrast, were portrayals of once-stable characters slowly losing their grip on reality. While Hereditary’s grief-stricken heroine experiences moments of lucidity – such as the scary scene where she almost sets her son on fire before waking up from sleepwalking – Beau’s entire story might be set in his faltering mind.
This would explain the strange aesthetic choices seen throughout Beau Is Afraid, from the uncanny makeup work on Phoenix’s younger self to the goofy plywood sets. Aster’s earlier psychological horror movies bounced between the troubled protagonist’s visions of reality and a more objective look at events, but Beau Is Afraid could be leaning further into surrealism by only showing Beau’s view of the world. Whether this approach will pay off and result in another instant cult classic like Hereditary or Midsommar, however, won’t be clear until Beau Is Afraid arrives in April.
