[imagesource:a24]

The director behind the dark and twisted films Hereditary and Midsommar, Ari Aster has a new movie up his sleeve.

Beau Is Afraid has been described as “a demented, imaginative, and darkly comical odyssey through guilt and repression” by a critic, which is everything one might expect from the acclaimed A24 horror maestro.

Aster’s third film is again a collaboration with Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix playing the titular Beau, with the director teasing that the feature will be a “nightmare comedy”, which had to be tampered down from an original four-hours-long script, according to IndieWire:

The writer-director helmed a 2011 short film also titled “Beau,” although it is unclear if “Beau Is Afraid” is related to the short. In that short film, a neurotic middle-aged man’s trip to visit his mother is held up when his keys are mysteriously taken from his door. He is subsequently haunted by an increasingly sinister chain of upsetting events.

The official synopsis for the full film reads: A paranoid man embarks on an epic odyssey to get home to his mother in this bold and ingeniously depraved new film from writer/director Ari Aster. So probably similar enough.

Have a look at trailer number one:

And number two:

Aster has unequivocally stated that Beau Is Afraid is not a horror – “It might take me a few movies before I wind back around to [horror], but I love horror and I’m sure I’ll be back,” Aster said – but clarified that “Head trauma will ALWAYS have a place in my films”.

Cool. There are only psychotic breakdowns here.

A24 will be releasing Beau Is Afraid in theatres on April 21.

[source:indiewire]