After making a name for himself in the realm of the indie horror landscape, acclaimed auteur Ari Aster is restamping his impact on the widespread genre by teaming up with A24 to deliver Beau Is Afraid. The upcoming black comedy-horror feature, which will mark Aster’s third directorial venture with the production giant, is set to officially hit theaters in less than a month. But unlike Aster’s other blockbuster horror hits — namely, Hereditary and Midsommar — his newest project has yet to receive the same level of marketing and popularity — and there’s some major reasons as to why.
First, what makes Beau Is Afraid stand out is that it’s confirmed to have a budget of around $40-50 million, which is the largest budget that Aster has ever had the chance to work with. Due to the film’s extended budget, Aster has now been given even more creative room to work with and to utilize in his script, allowing his fascination for all-things-weird to completely take over in this movie.
Second, the utter lack of a marketing frenzy has led a large portion of horror fanatics on Twitter to believe that this will be Aster’s best film for the simple fact that there’s no mediocre memes to capitalize on, which Hereditary has memorable caused in the past. Instead, Aster has built a raw, emotionally-driven script that features Joker star Joaquin Phoenix stripping the one-time jokes and delivering an expected performance of a lifetime.
On the other hand, a select few have expressed concern in regards to the movie’s poor marketing, insinuating that perhaps A24 just isn’t “confident” that the film will become a bonafide success. But with Aster’s clear-cut vision of providing an arthouse horror flick with a much deeper meaning rooted below, Beau Is Afraid has all of the ingredients needed to etch itself as Ari Aster’s greatest piece.
Beau Is Afraid drops in theaters on April 21.