First Reactions for Ari Aster’s ‘Beau is Afraid’ Are Positive

The social media embargo has lifted on Ari Aster’s “Beau is Afraid.”

Since it’s April Fool’s, audiences who bought tickets to today’s Alamo Drafthouse retrospective screenings of filmmaker Ari Aster’s folk horror classic “Midsommar” were instead given something better: a first look at “Beau is Afraid.”

This will be a very polarizing movie. I wouldn’t put too much stake in all of these positive reactions. We know this won’t be a film for everyone’s tastes. In short, ‘Beau’ is going to mess people up. Not even kidding. Some will love, and others will absolute hate it.

You’ll get my extended thoughts when the review embargo is lifted. There is currently no date for that. I’m guessing, maybe, the week of release …

Everything about this film is being been amped up the nth degree by these reactions, including its, now well-known, 3-hour runtime. I’ve also come to the conclusion that Aster is a man who is absolutely afraid of his own emotions — icky gooey mind-feelings freak him the hell out.

Variety’s Brett Lang was in attendance this afternoon and had this to say about the film, which he called “sometimes scary, frequently funny and deeply weird”:

The crowd seemed to love it, though the group was already game to spend a Saturday afternoon watching a longer version of “Midsommar.” The general public may have a tougher time with the film, as people split between the profound and ponderous camps when it comes to this bladder-testing epic.

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 plays an “extremely anxious but pleasant-looking man who has a fraught relationship with his overbearing mother and never knew his father.” When his mother comes “calling”, 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.

‘Beau is Afraid’ will be released on April 14th. It has earned an “R” Rating for Strong Violence and Graphic Nudity.