Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid

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I've only seen a couple of Aster's films so I can't say I really know his style, but this feels very Kaufman-esque. Looks interesting. I'd probably want to see it even if Phoenix wasn't in it because it seems so odd.

Not really a fan of Ari Aster but this seems different and fascinating enough that I look forward to it. I hope it lives up to the weirdly wonderful vibe of that trailer.

That looks...interesting. Seems well-casted. But Ari Aster tends to put stuff in his movies that I can not handle. It is the head smashing that I have a problem with.

Love Ari Aster films including the short films I have seen. This will be a definite watch.

Apparently this is going to be a very long movie(4 hours)...which frankly I'm kinda here for.

Is this based on his earlier short?

Glad I saw the trailer. Looks like a skipper for me.

It does look like a perfect role for Phoenix though.

I'll wait for y'all's report...

Doesn't look a lot like Aster's other films.

Hmm, that does make it more interesting. I really loved Hereditary, it absolutely lingered on, and at the time when I first saw it I remember wanting it to last as long as possible. Have seen it plenty of times since then and still find it pretty perfect. Didn’t like Midsommar that much.

I’m a bit apprehensive about this supposedly being a comedy, but will of course watch.

Surely it will be a comedy in the vein of Peele's 'US' which is a horror but with some laugh out loud moments.

Anyway, the answer is yes. A24 have taken down Aster's previous short called 'Beau' from Vimeo:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2049400...nm_flmg_t_7_dr

Hope so! But have you ever seen US actually described as a comedy (that’s not meant as a counter-argument or anything, but I certainly haven’t)?

I think he should be able to come up with something quite original, though. For some reason, that poster is giving me major Dogtooth vibes.

I do love a truly dark joke in a horror film, but that’s so hard to land. I actively detest all so-called ‘horror comedies’ with the begrudging exception of Cabin in the Woods, and that only because I’m a sucker for all things meta.

Well the short was a horror comedy, so I'm going horror comedy. If it's not then I'm to blame.

Fair enough.

Incoming box office bomb alert.

I saw who the most recent reply was from and silently predicted to myself "this will be a short comment only about box office."

Anyway, more coming out about the actual content of the film and it sounds like, uh, it might actually contain a lot of the hallmarks of his previous films after all? IE: horror and horrible violence and whatnot. Which is kinda crazy because at least one of the major trailer releases gives no indication of that at all, and in fact gives a lot of trailer "signals" (like with its music choices) to the opposite.

At least one person is going to see just that trailer, watch the film, and be pretty upset, I think, and they'll kinda have a reasonable case to be.

I hope the director comes back to horror for his next movie.

Beau Is Afraid (Ari Aster, 2023)

What the f*** did I just watch?

I don't mean to imply anything bad by asking that, I really don't, but I think this might have earned the title of the strangest movie I have ever watched. It was just one crazy-ass scene after another and I'm not entirely sure that I actually understood what the hell was happening in it. It was kind of a horror, kinda of a comedy, and kind of just an acid trip without the drugs. A three hour acid trip.

I'm going to go ahead and give it a positive rating because I was most definitely never bored in that three hours, but I'm probably going to need to watch it again before I can make any sense out of it or my feelings about it.