April as a month sees some solid movie releases. It may surprise you to learn that most of the ones to look for actually have somewhat of a horror slant to them. You haveRenfield,a Dracula movie with a twist (and a Nick Cage);Evil Dead Rise,another entry in Sam Raimi’s masterwork;From Black,a Shudder original, andThe Pope’s Exorcist. Lots of spooky times. What fits right on in there, though, would be a little movie calledBeau is Afraid.
Coming near the end of April on the 21st, this movie has been billed as a horror comedy, interestingly enough. It’s perhaps the most challenging sub-genre to pull off when it typically favors one or the other more. It’s atricky genre to have stick the landing, but this one very well may be up to the lofty task for several reasons.
What’s Ari Aster Plotting?
First and foremost, this movie is directed by visionary Ari Aster. Don’t know who that is? Go back five years to his brilliant debut of the horror movieHereditary,and you’ll see this guy is something else. What starts as a pretty slow burn morphs into ahorrifyingspectacle. If there’s one thing that this guy is good at, it’s putting the viewer in the most uncomfortable position possible and then turning up the heat, never letting the pressure settle until the credits finally roll. It’s not often you see such brilliant execution in a horror movie. There are few, if any, jump scares, with Ari opting for a slowly increasing feeling of dread as to when the next horrible train wreck will arrive.
His next filmMidsommarwas similar in that same trait where it kept getting more and more suffocating. The tension keeps building on top of itself and never really lets off. While not as scary as his first, the movie still has its moments and transports the viewer to a whole new world and a pretty insane allegory for a bad breakup where the characters make all the wrong decisions.
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So now, when he says he wants to do a weird horror-comedy hybrid of a man’s life told in segments, this should excite you to see what the result will look like. So far, his movies have been wholly his own, with only the slightest resemblance to previous films. While you may watch the trailer forHereditaryand think it is similar to something likeThe Omen,what ends up happening over the course of two hours is anything but a simple movie about the coming of the anti-Christ in a child. Ari himself has recentlycalledthe film a “Jewish Lord of the Rings,” so what that actually will look like is beyond anyone’s guess. Speaking of which…
This movie has a pretty unique premise in that it stars a very anxious man trying to accept the death of his very domineering mother. The whole film features Joaquin trying to return home, facing all his worst fears along the way. Now somehow, supernatural elements and Wes Anderson-style play sets are also involved, as pictured above. And this is meant to be mildly scary. All these elements feel like they’re thrown together in a blender and set to vaporize.
What’s also interesting is the amount of faith that A24 as a studio puts into this film. This will be their most expensive movie to date at a giant (for them) budget of around $40-50 million. For any horror movie, that’s also considered a pretty giant budget, given it’s the genre that invented the idea of turning small inputs into huge returns.
Joaquin Phoenix Is the Man
Seriously, what movie role has this guy done that was bad? He’s pretty pitch-perfect in everything he’s in. Starting with Commodus fromGladiator,where he has an adult temper tantrum every ten minutes toWalk the Line,where he worked with a voice coach for six months to become John R. Cash, and finally to the extremely popularArthur Fleck ofJoker.This guy throws himself full steam ahead into anything that he touches. Bearing that in mind, this shouldn’t be any different. That samelevel of insanityhe brought to the Joker should be seen here, too, manifested in a wholly different way.
