So, there you go. Ari Aster’s “Beau is Afraid” will be released in April, according to A24. We also now have a poster. A trailer is due to be released next Tuesday. I’m guessing a SXSW world premiere could be in the books for this one.
I heard the film was supposed to go to Cannes last year only to get pulled for further editing. A producer keeps telling me the film is a mess. I’m still intrigued by this one. Aster doesn’t play it safe and he’s one of the more interesting young directors out there.
Aster’s original cut was said to be around four hours, but it’s been snipped to three hours.
In 2011, Aster directed a short film titled “Beau.” Described as a “decades-spanning surrealist horror film set in an alternate present,” Phoenix’s character would play an “extremely anxious but pleasant-looking man who has a fraught relationship with his overbearing mother and never knew his father.” When his mother dies, he makes a journey home that involves some wild supernatural threats.
Aster turned heads at Sundance 2018 with his incredibly realized neo-horror film “Hereditary.” The following year he polarized movie fans with his love/hate statement “Midsommar,” a film I was lukewarm on, upon initial viewing, until I finally caught up with the 3-hour director’s cut at home and had a total 180 opinion reversal.
Quiver, a tiny specialty distributor that makes even Vertical and Briarcliffe look behemoth, has picked up U.S. distribution of the long-delayed film from fellow micro-indie Blue Fox.