Beau is Afraid (Ari Aster, 2023) • Page 14

lol, this movie, fuck.

 

Yep, seeing this again tomorrow evening lol. Can't wait

 

this kinda lost me in the third act, but it was still pretty hilarious. I definitely don't feel the need to rewatch it anytime soon unlike I did with Hereditary and Midsommar

 

Really can't stop thinking about this one, so excited to be seeing it with friends this time. This movie is...a lot of things, but boring is absolutely not one of them imo. Makes a pretty great argument for its runtime. Can't imagine not being in awe of that animated sequence

 

Hated the first hour of this but once the animation kicked in my rating went from a 4/10 to an 8.5. Really sticks the landing too at the end. Coming from a Jewish household, that entire third act felt like I was in a suburban guilt nightmare and I loved every minute of it.

 

I felt the same way until after when I saw someone state that because Beau never knew his father, and the only information he had about him was that he had sex with his mom, conceived him, then died, that all his father was (to him) was a penis. And then it landed a little more for me.

 

My take on the penis monster is that it was audacious and made me laugh.

A bunch of scattered moments really made me laugh throughout this. One of them was the moment it ended and “directed by Ari Aster” came up on the screen.

 

I liked how the credits looked like a movie projector with the crowd slowly shuffling out

 

I liked how the cop was shown pinching the nipples of the (presumably) sex worker. almost spit out my beverage on that one

 

And people started leaving right when the boat exploded lol, not even waiting for him to actually die

 

that was me. I was tired & wanted to get driving before I got too sleepy

 

Just left round two, officially in love with this move.

A couple of things I noticed this time around: the ending is foreshadowed by a kid playing with a remote controlled boat in a fountain at the beginning that capsizes as his mom yells at him. Also, I'm pretty sure the shot of Beau being clotheslined by the tree branch when running away from the outdoor theaters is lifted directly from Evil Dead 2

 

This is a masterpiece. I also think it’s more horror than comedy. Kinda surprised how much everyone is referring to the comedy more so than the horror. There are a few funny moments sure but the whole thing is a nightmare!

 

PUP, Owen, Spiritbox posters too ?!?

 

I think it's a comedy filmed as if it was a straight Aster horror film, which is what makes it so unique. Honestly feel like the closest think I can compare it to at this point is an Adult Swim Infomercial stretched to three hours

 

I love Joaquin, but I can't stop imaging this with Sandler

 

Yea and some of those infomercials get downright creepy.

 

The movie is super unsettling and disturbing which I guess counts as horror.

 

the thought of living in the middle of that super chaotic, skid row-esque area is terrifying

I also thought the the spiders would be a bigger part of the movie

 

A lot of it was so similar to nightmares I (would) have, or how my anxiety/life feels, my family/upbringing/heritage. Everything that transpired, especially before he’s abducted, was a series of events/things where everything that could go wrong did. It was unrelenting and familiar in a way I don’t think a film has been for me before.

 

I personally found this more funny than scary. It’s a very anxiety-driven film, but that wasn’t filtered through the kind of dread & trauma that Midsommar was. From the beginning, it tackled its horrors through a more surreal filter than directly visceral, and that heightened approach lent itself sometimes to laughs but rarely to… real “fear,” as much as it was so clearly and effectively about fear (and shame, etc).

I will say, the three-hour runtime and surreal structure made it hard for me to fully say I “loved” it. Wouldn’t say the movie lost gas, but I personally did? I’m glad I saw this in a theater, where the visuals and sound could have maximum impact and I was forced to take the whole journey in one trip. And yet, there are aspects I can’t help but feel I’ll appreciate more revisiting at home? Idk.

 

Yeah, I mean as is the case with almost any three-hour film, I think even shaving 25 minutes off of some of the slower moments could have really made it perfect, but in my eyes, for what it is, it's a masterpiece

 

100% this was way funnier than scary.

Personally, I thought Hereditary was very scary. Midsommar was deeply unsettling but beautiful. This one was hilarious and also unsettling but not on a Midsommar level.

 

I really enjoyed this. I do appreciate that it can be looked at as scary and unsettling or absurd and comedic. It really is a perfect capturing of everyday anxiety and how depending on how you look at it/are feeling that day, you can see the absurdity or you can see the horror. It was such a fun ride to take, even though I don't know if I'll ever sit down to do it again in one sitting lol

This was exactly my thought. I was like this is the movie everyone is saying is so unhinged and "cruel" to it's audience. But then I was like ok I see it.

I feel this lol, I was like hmm maybe it's not a good thing that this all just kinda makes sense to me.

This almost feels like a boring/lazy take on my part, but I thought the spiders were actually what killed him. Like he got bit by one, and then the effects of that combined with his anxiety and new medication caused him to have intense hallucinations until his death. We last saw the spider in the bathtub scene, and then he dies in water in the end of the movie. The entire thing was pretty much "what if every anxious thought you've ever had actually happened"