Horror movies have two speeds: Slasher and terrifyingly intense. At the risk of sleeping with the lights on for the next forever, we’re looking at the latter.
With Halloween fast approaching, Moviefone is counting down the most terrifying horror movies that were released between 2015 and now.
Robert Eggers’ ‘Nosferatu’ is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman (Lily-Rose Depp) and the terrifying vampire (Bill Skarsgård) infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
An American nun (Sydney Sweeney) embarks on a new journey when she joins a remote convent in the Italian countryside. However, her warm welcome quickly turns into a living nightmare when she discovers her new home harbours a sinister secret and unspeakable horrors.
When an American family is invited to spend the weekend at the idyllic country estate of a charming British family they befriended on vacation, what begins as a dream holiday soon warps into a snarled psychological nightmare.
In town for a job interview, a young woman (Georgina Campbell) arrives at her Airbnb late at night only to find that it has been mistakenly double-booked and a strange man (Bill Skarsgård) is already staying there. Against her better judgement, she decides to stay the night anyway.
A young couple (Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult) travels to a remote island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef (Ralph Fiennes) has prepared a lavish menu, with some shocking surprises.
Still scarred by the trauma he endured as a child at the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) faces the ghosts of the past when he meets Abra (Kyliegh Curran), a courageous teen who desperately needs his help — and who possesses a powerful extrasensory ability called the “shine”.
After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can’t explain.
When twin brothers (Theo James) find a mysterious wind-up monkey, a series of outrageous deaths tear their family apart. Twenty-five years later, the monkey begins a new killing spree forcing the estranged brothers to confront the cursed toy.
When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces.
In pursuit of a serial killer (Nicolas Cage), an FBI agent (Maika Monroe) uncovers a series of occult clues that she must solve to end his terrifying killing spree.
When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
A fading celebrity (Demi Moore) decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself (Margaret Qualley).
Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.
Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family’s overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter’s interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
Two young missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse.
In a small town in Maine, seven children known as The Losers Club come face to face with life problems, bullies and a monster that takes the shape of a clown called Pennywise.
Following the death of the Leigh family matriarch, Annie (Toni Collette) and her children uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not only impacted, but they also become entangled in a chilling fate from which they cannot escape, driving them to the brink of madness.
The fourth feature from writer-director Ari Aster – who previously tackled horror in ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommar,’ and psychological surrealism in ‘Beau is Afraid’ – finds the filmmaker pivoting again, this time to a hybrid of political satire, social commentary, and Western tropes.
As one might imagine from reading that ambitious trio of themes, Aster takes a big swing with ‘Eddington’ – in which he stands up a small New Mexico town for an America reeling from COVID and Trumpism – but doesn’t quite connect. In his attempt to say as much as he can about the current state of the nation, Aster doesn’t manage to really say anything except that the situation is kind of hopeless. Despite its excellent visual package and a sturdy set of performances, ‘Eddington’ never quite finds its groove.
Story and Direction
Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
Eddington, New Mexico is the kind of small town that some folks used to colloquially describe as a “wide place in the road”: with a population of just over 2,300 spread out over a sprawling desert landscape and a downtown that is not that lively even on its best days, Eddington is the kind of place where decent people go just to be left alone and live quietly, but which can also breed insularity and incuriosity.
As ‘Eddington’ opens, it’s 2020 and the town is in the grip of the COVID pandemic: the mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), is on the surface a well-meaning liberal who dutifully enforces mask mandates and is advocating for the construction of a high-tech data center to bring Eddington into the 21st century, while the sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) pushes back against masking out of a combination of genuine concern for some of his townspeople ( who find it hard to breathe through them, for example) and a festering belligerence toward the kind of governmental authority that he feels verges on overstepping.
So when Sheriff Joe decides he’s had enough and announces his own campaign to unseat Ted, festering tensions in the town – along political, personal, race, and age lines – start to boil over. The town’s younger population, bored and directionless, find their voice in first Black Lives Matter marches and then increasingly incoherent cultural protests (one teen raging over white privilege at the dinner table earns an incredulous “you’re white!” from his exasperated father), while Joe’s more or less incompetent campaign still manages to rattle the slick, unflappable Ted and get more of the town on his side. It doesn’t help matters that Joe’s wife, Louise (Emma Stone) – who once had a dalliance with Ted – is going down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole with her mom Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), with the two of them falling under the spell of an online cult leader named Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler).
Micheal Ward in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
If that sounds like a lot, it is. And for its first half, ‘Eddington’ plays like the political/social satire that the above sets up, with some characters faring better than others in the empathy stakes and a few sporadically funny moments thrown in. At the same time, if a movie centers around a lot of people talking past each other, it had better be as sharply written as possible, and Aster’s script takes more of a kitchen-sink approach than a focused one, resulting in a certain amount of tedium.
And then ‘Eddington’ takes a shocking turn at the halfway point into much darker territory, with murder and a real conspiracy coming into play, and suddenly the movie cannot even find the right tonal balance to make all this hit as hard as possible. Perhaps Aster is trying to say that the kind of cultural and political polarization that’s been racking this nation for the past decade is funny until it isn’t, but all the film gets across by the time it ends is a kind of bleak, dreary nihilism.
On an aesthetic level, Aster is sure-footed and confident. Eddington (played largely by the wonderfully named New Mexico town Truth Or Consequences) is a character unto itself, full of both beauty and death and photographically evocatively by legendary DP Darius Khondji, while the film’s design, scope, and atmosphere all evoke an America that’s teetering on the edge of profound disaster. But while Aster seems to want to fashion a true American epic out of this material, all he pretty much says is that we’re all stupid enough to fall for anything in the end, and the film’s closing scenes become as inarticulate as the youth protests that rock the once-placid town.
Cast and Performances
(L to R) Emma Stone and Deirdre O’Connell in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
We have been increasingly disenchanted with Joaquin Phoenix’s last few performances, as he seemed to recycle the same inexpressive, psychologically wounded, emotionally stunted man-child in both ‘Joker’ films, ‘Napoleon,’ and Ari Aster’s brutally unwatchable ‘Beau is Afraid.’ But he turns away from those here with his work as Sheriff Joe Cross, a man who respects the traditions of law enforcement and seems to genuinely believe in doing the right thing and taking people at their word – until he doesn’t, and until the strain of what’s happening in Eddington finally breaks him down.
It’s a tribute to Phoenix’s still-considerable skills as an actor that he makes Joe empathetic even for those who might flinch reflexively from the character, and even when Joe plunges into darkness later in the film, Phoenix still manages to pull out moments that show the man’s shattered humanity. It’s the actor’s best work in a while, even if Joe Cross gets stuck in the nexus of the story’s confused themes.
Pedro Pascal utilizes his effortless presence to effectively portray Ted Garcia’s charisma and camera-ready personality, but we don’t get to see enough of what’s under the skin to truly make the mayor come to life. The same goes for a number of others in the film: Emma Stone, Deirdre O’Connell, and William Belleau – as a Native American police officer from the tribal lands next to Eddington who perhaps sees the truth of what’s happening most clearly – are all excellent, but aren’t provided enough real estate to develop their characters. Luke Grimes and Micheal Ward are also striking as Joe’s deputies, who almost act as the good and bad angels on his shoulders, while Austin Butler is frankly wasted in a role that clogs up the plot even more and really doesn’t need to be there.
Final Thoughts
Austin Butler in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
The closing shot of ‘Eddington’ may reflect the growing divide between those who yearn for a sort of mythical “simpler time” and those who want to push the country forward even at the risk of ignoring or sidestepping the possible dangers. The darkness surrounding that last image may also indicate that the two sides are too far apart at this point, and too willing to go to extreme ends to preserve their notion of what our lives, culture, and society should be.
It’s an evocative shot, and if Ari Aster had brought a little more of that thoughtfulness to the rest of ‘Eddington,’ the bulk of the film might be as haunting. But he piles so much into the movie’s 149-minute running time that we can’t help but be reminded of another overstuffed, would-be epic: Damien Chazelle’s ‘Babylon,’ which went to similar lengths but also seemed to lose its way among its own ambitions. ‘Eddington’ has a lot it wants to say – it just doesn’t know how to say it effectively.
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What is the plot of ‘Eddington’?
In May 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix, along with other select members of the press, in an online roundtable interview. Phoenix discussed his work on ‘Eddington’, creating his character, the rehearsal process, working with the cast including Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone, reuniting with his ‘Beau Is Afraid’ director Ari Aster, and continuing to collaborate with the acclaimed filmmaker moving forward.
Joaquin, can you talk about collaborating with director Ari Aster and the costume department to create the look for your character, Joe Cross, and did you take any inspiration from fictional or historical figures?
Joaquin Phoenix: Early on when Ari was still working through the script, we took a trip together to New Mexico, where he introduced me to a few different sheriffs and mayors in some small towns and pueblos, that he had met on a previous trip. There was one man in particular who just looked amazing. I loved how he looked, and he was wearing the white shirt, jeans and boots. I took some pictures of him and then I didn’t really plan on using it, he was just one of several people that I met. Then I went to Mexico to start prepping and worked with Anna (Terrazas) and she had some sketches of the traditional sheriff’s uniform, the brown uniform, and then also the look of the photos that we’d center on this sheriff, which was the jeans and white shirt. Ari and I both felt like the brown uniform was right. So, we went there, and I put that on and then at the end of the fitting, I said, “Do you have any of the white shirts and jeans? Like that other look? So, she pulled it out. Then for the next two weeks, all through rehearsal leading up to literally the day before shooting, me and Ari went back-and-forth over which look was right. A couple days before we started shooting, we did the camera test and just before that camera test, I pulled up a picture I had of the sheriff, and he had these glasses on. I just said, “Do you have any glasses like this?” We put these glasses on during the camera test and we all just went, “Oh, that’s it. There it is”. It was strange how they all came together, but really it was a kind of a last-minute decision and there were times throughout shooting where I wondered whether we made the right choice, but it came alive.
The relationship between your character and Pedro Pascal’s character is really the engine that drives the movie, but you don’t have a lot of screen time together. Can you talk about how you and Pedro approached those scenes to create the depth and energy needed to move the story forward?
JP: Well, they’re all great scenes that are just full of conflict, rumor, hurt feelings and insecurity. It’s like everything that you would want, all the ingredients are there. I think there’s four major scenes with us, maybe. I always felt like I was the beneficiary of the environment or the production design that fuels us. So, one of the early scenes of the movie where I’m talking to him at his bar, and we’re separated by glass. For some reason, when I read the script, I didn’t register that. When I got there that day, it was separated and I go, “Wait, what are we doing? It was literally this like, block. It was a blockage to connecting with him. It seemed like this perfect kind of metaphor that there’s just something that is between us that’s separating us from connecting. Then the scene after I announced that I’m running for Mayor, there was this crazy storm in New Mexico, it was literally sunny and by the fourth take the wind was whipping through and it ultimately ended up hailing. So, I think part of it is like, you’re just trying to be receptive to what is happening and whether that’s an energy on set or what the other actor is doing or something that’s happening in the environment. I just I felt like I had an amazing partner in Pedro, who seemed very clear on who Ted was, particularly I’m thinking about the scene in the supermarket just before I announced that I’m running for mayor. I was not sure of what I was doing at that point. It was early in the shoot, and I didn’t fully understand where I was. I was trying to figure out, like, “Wait, but who am I? What do I do I stand for? What’s important to me?” Of course, in hindsight, I realize that’s exactly what Joe was experiencing. Ted is somebody who thinks that he’s doing exactly what he’s meant to be doing. So, what we were feeling was really kind of matching what was happening. But Pedro, he knew what he wanted, he was so gracious in allowing me to find it, because let me tell you, I was like all over the map. What you’re seeing in that scene is I guess subconsciously, I really worked myself up to into a state of frustration, anger and impotence. For me, I remember that take and there was a take where I acknowledged that people might be filming in the supermarket and it was the first time that that happened, you know, in that take. It just it felt alive, so I had somebody that I was working with that was able to allow that to happen.
(L to R) Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
What did you discover about the character while you were filming that was surprising to you and different than what you initially thought about the character when you first read the screenplay?
JP: Well, it was surprising. I knew my intention was to humanize Joe as much as possible. I hoped that anybody that came in that might have some preconceived idea of who a conservative sheriff in a small town might be, I wanted to challenge those ideas, at least initially. So that was a goal of mine. I have to say that I ended up feeling a great deal of warmth for Joe. I don’t really know how to explain it. I think a certain kind of sadness and, no spoilers, but for him to allow all that dissatisfaction and frustration and pain to manifest in the way that it does, it’s just disappointing. I think maybe he reminds me of so many people in the real world, in those kinds of critical moments that we all face and like, what kind of person are we going to be? So, I think I was initially surprised at how much I cared for him, and then how much his actions disappointed me.
Moviefone: Joaquin, can you talk about your working relationship with director Ari Aster, how that has grown and changed since making ‘Beau Is Afraid,’ and what it was like collaborating with him again on ‘Eddington’?
JP: I think that we were less cordial, thank God. There’s something, also, when I look back on some of our conversations, it really seems like a family. I was excited by that. I mean, even on ‘Beau’ he was very perceptive, but at this point now, he’s armed fully with information about how I work. He sees things before I’m even aware of them. So, that was great. We had talked. We had started working together and reading through the script a year in advance. So, we’d been through so many discussions about how Joe was going to talk because the very first thing for me when I was reading this script, I just heard this voice. Then we got together, and I was like, “I heard this voice.” He was like, “Well, what is it?” I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to physically bring it out. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I just heard it in my head.” So, we just kept talking and occasionally I would try things and we spoke to this dialect coach and we’re like, “We’re not meeting with a dialect coach. What are we doing?” I just really liked trying to figure out who is, but I remember this one moment on set. It was our first official day of shooting, and it was the news conference. I was really struggling. I was nervous, and I felt like there was something missing from the scene. I couldn’t identify what it was exactly. I just knew that it had to do with acknowledging, it’s right after I make the announcement to be mayor, and I needed to acknowledge it somehow. I remember it was super uncomfortable because we were running out of time, and we had to go to lunch. We’d already burnt like an hour. We didn’t have anything yet. So, I was nervous. Then I’m standing in front of the chalkboard and I’m practicing my lines, and Ari’s standing next to me, and he’s going through the lines at the same time. We’re both standing side by side and Ari takes on the feelings, like he’s doesn’t separate from the character. So. he’s doing it and I just feel him and there’s a point where he just made this gesture. Where he put up his hands like, “I’m sorry”, as he was talking. I just was like, “Oh, that gesture, that’s it. That’s Joe.” Joe’s always in the state putting up his hand trying to stop the world, trying to stop the thing that’s happening. Like, everything is falling. He’s losing grasp of his relationship, and this idea of himself and what it is to be a man, and to be an American and to be a man of power. It’s all slipping away from him, and he’s just constantly trying to put up his hands, going, “No, stop. It’s going to be okay.” It was this moment that just unlocked it for me, at least for that scene. It gave me some clarity and that’s just a strong memory that I have.
(L to R) Micheal Ward, Joaquin Phoenix and Luke Grimes in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
Joaquin, this is only your second film with Ari, but already some critics are comparing your work together to that of actor and director pairings like Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro or Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. How do you feel about those comparisons, and is Ari a filmmaker that you see yourself continuing to collaborate with throughout your career?
JP: Well, that is so flattering, but I will not say that we are in the same classes. I’ll speak for myself, I don’t feel like I sit shoulder to shoulder with those guys, but that’s very nice to hear that. I would hope so. I just adore Ari. I love his observations, human behavior, the way that he writes, and just how much he really cares about making films. It’s pure. You know, I’ve worked with like a lot of directors and there’s so many different reasons why people do what they do. But there’s something very pure and innocent about Ari’s love for film and for filmmaking. It’s inspiring and to be honest, at my age after I’ve made so many movies, there is a point, it’s just human where you can grow bored or complacent. Sometimes you don’t have that same natural fuel that you do when you’re 20 years old and you’re trying to make it, and you’re just like so full of drive and ambition. To work with somebody like Ari, where that is still so alive in him, and he sees it in you, that is a gift. So, I love working with him, and I consider him a friend, and yeah, I would absolutely do anything with Ari again, for sure.
Finally, you had an extensive rehearsal period before you began shooting the film. What was that process like for you and did rehearsing with Emma Stone, Luke Grimes and Michael Ward help you find the character?
JP: Yeah, it felt like it was like all these different stages. So initially, I think for the first week of filming, it was just the interior Sheriff’s office, and it was me, Luke and Michael. So, I was able to really focus on and establish that relationship and we’re doing that in real time. We had some rehearsal days, but it’s very hard to rehearse. The set isn’t completely done, you don’t have all the props around. I mean, you’re standing in your own clothes. It’s difficult for me to rehearse like that. So, it’s just about having conversations. Then I went from that to, I believe, Pedro came to town and then that was working with Pedro for a week or so and I was exploring that part of the story. Prior to that, I was just in this mode where I was like, “The whole movie is just me in a sheriff’s station with my two deputies.” That’s what it felt like. Then, there’s this whole other part of the story and so they went into Pedro’s part where so much of what’s at the heart of our relationship and dynamic is Emma’s character. But I haven’t yet seen Emma and worked with her on this film and so there’s things that I’m discovering about her character, my feelings about her character, through scenes with Pedro before Emma even arrives. It sounds confusing and it is at times, but also sometimes is informative. It’s interesting how film schedules work out. Sometimes it’s really to your benefit. By the time Emma came, I think she came on the third week, and I said, “I feel like I’ve been shooting for three months already.” It felt so loaded and full of this history, which felt crucial with her relationship because we’re obviously the people that have the greatest history and the one whose relationship is most troubled from the get-go. So, I was really kind of thankful for how things worked out because I think she arrived, and it was already fraught in in the best possible way.
Editorial Note: Don Kaye took part in the roundtable and contributed to this article.
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What is the plot of ‘Eddington’?
In May 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.
Emma Stone, Pedro Pascal and more have joined Ari Aster’s ‘Eddington’
The movie reunites Aster with his ‘Beau is Afraid’ star Joaquin Phoenix.
Austin Butler, Clifton Collins Jr., Luke Grimes and Micheal Ward are all aboard.
Given how strange, divisive and –– probably most crucially –– unsuccessful at the box office ($11.9 million worldwide gross on a $35 million budget) Ari Aster’s ‘Beau is Afraid’ proved to be last year, you might suspect that Aster would be languishing in the darkest depths of director jail.
And yet studio A24, which produced ‘Beau’, is clearly ready to believe in his vision again, and the fate of that movie did not detract from Aster’s ability to attract solid talent, as he’s got an excellent cast lined up for his new movie.
‘Eddington’, which has cameras now rolling, will feature recent Oscar winner (for the second time) Emma Stone, ‘The Last of Us’ Pedro Pascal and Joaquin Phoenix, who reunites with the director after starring as ‘Beau’s twitchy protagonist.
(L to R) Joaquin Phoenix and director Ari Aster on the set of ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
As is his way, Aster –– who also brought us the nightmarish visions of ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommar’ –– is keeping much of the detail close for now.
But with a script once more by the director, ‘Eddington’ reportedly focuses on a small-town New Mexico sheriff with lofty aspirations. And it’ll be in the Western genre, as confirmed by A24’s Instagram post on the start of production.
Behind the camera, Aster has legendary cinematographer Darius Khondji ready to shoot whatever warped concepts he’s cooked up this time.
Stone, of course, is no stranger to offbeat directors, having seen success (including that second Oscar, for her role in ‘Poor Things’) working with Yorgos Lanthimos, with whom she has another movie, ‘Kinds of Kindness’ due this year.
When will ‘Eddington’ be in theaters?
A24 has yet to announce when Aster’s latest movie will make it to theaters. ‘Beau’ took a couple of years from filming to hit screens, but with luck the director will have this one ready for next year.
Joaquin Phoenix in director Ari Aster’s ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Parker Posey about her work on ‘Beau Is Afraid,’ director Ari Aster’s unique visual style, working with Joaquin Phoenix, and why she needs filmmakers and fellow actors to fight for her to get roles.
Parker Posey stars in director Ari Aster’s ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
You can read the full interview below or please click on the video player above to watch the interview and clips from the film.
Moviefone: To begin with, how did director Ari Aster originally pitch this film to you and what was your first reaction to the extremely imaginative screenplay?
Parker Posey: Well, I heard that he wanted to meet me on Zoom. So we had a Zoom meeting, and I said, “I saw ‘Hereditary’ and there was one thing that I really didn’t like about it.” Then I was like, “That I wasn’t in it.” Because I’m such a fan. I mean, ‘Hereditary’, and this movie too, he’s a real auteur filmmaker, and a visionary filmmaker who create these worlds that are able to elicit feelings that no other filmmaker can make and that are special to the artist. So Ari, with his actors and his direction, his camera work, his storytelling, to me, it felt like when I read it, like it was a movie that he always wanted to make.
(L to R) Joaquin Phoenix and director Ari Aster on the set of ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
MF: When you had your first meeting with Ari did you know immediately that you would work well with him on set?
PP: So when we met on Zoom, he just said, “I’ve been a fan of yours for so long. I really want you to be in this movie. It’s a small part but Joaquin wants you too.” I was like, “I’m just so thankful.” I don’t get to do roles unless the director really wants me, and the star really wants me. They can fight the financiers or whoever’s in charge that is saying, “No, we want someone younger, or we want someone who was just in a movie last month.” So I was really, really touched to have that support and to feel that support come seemingly out of nowhere and be like, “Oh, this is really sweet. This is how it used to be for me way back 30 years ago. Back in the day, darling.” So it was lovely.
Joaquin Phoenix in director Ari Aster’s ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
MF: The movie is visually stunning. Can you talk about the unique look of the film and what you thought of the final product?
PP: It’s a Kafkaesque landscape, and it’s a labyrinth. We don’t know where we are. We don’t know who these people are, we don’t know who they’re working for. So he’s making something culturally relevant today that audience members will want to go to a theater and see. But when I saw the screening, I was like, “This could be at Disney World.” The art behind it, what Beau goes through, it just looks great.
Joaquin Phoenix in director Ari Aster’s ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
MF: Finally, what was it like working with Joaquin Phoenix and watching his process as an actor?
PP: You’re taken by Joaquin and what he does as an actor in bringing out our empathy. Also, he’s so mysterious as well. He’s got a lot going on. He’s very loose and open, and fluid, as an actor, and also very physical. Ari had a lot of physical theater actors in this. So there’s this gravitas that the performers carry that you don’t see tonally in a lot of movies, which I really love.
(L to R) Nathan Lane, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Ryan in ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
Joaquin Phoenix in director Ari Aster’s ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
‘Beau Is Afraid’ on wide release now, represents filmmaker Ari Aster cashing in the creative credit he’s earned with the buzz and box office of horror movies ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommar’ and taking a gigantic swing for the creative fences that will surely end up in the “love” or “hate” column for most viewers.
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What is ‘Beau is Afraid’ about?
Aster’s latest is the story of nervy, milquetoast Beau Wassermann (Joaquin Phoenix), who lives alone in a downtown apartment building where every moment is a waking nightmare. His home is squarely in a city block that might be a war zone for all the chaos that seemingly constantly breaks out on the streets.
Prone to anxiety and paranoia, he visits his longtime therapist (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who prepares him for his imminent journey to visit his mother Mona (Patti LuPone). But mayhem ensues on the eve of Beau’s departure, spinning his life in a surreal new direction.
Unable to reach his destination in a world gone insane, traveling on roads that don’t appear on any map, Beau is forced to confront his own life and the lies he’s been told by those closest to him.
And that’s the most basic description –– there is so much more lurking within here, including weird, grieving suburbanites (played by Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan) who initially help and then effectively adopt Beau, much to the endless frustration of their teen daughter Toni (Kylie Rogers). A forest-dwelling theatre troupe with whom Beau links up end up shattered by tragedy. And when he does finally get to his mother’s house, there is some truly surreal weirdness to follow.
Wreathed through it all are flashbacks to his time as a teenager (where he’s brought to life by Armen Nahapetian), spending time on a cruise ship and elsewhere with his demanding, highly strung mother (here played by Zoe Lister-Jones). It’s on the cruise that a crucial moment in Beau’s development –– or the arrest of it, at least –– occurs, when he meets and falls for Elaine (Julia Antonelli), only for her to be snatched away by her mother. It really gets to the roots of his problems.
(L to R) Nathan Lane, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Ryan in ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
Cast Performances
Beau is such a sniveling, seemingly unlikable protagonist that it’s credit to Aster and Phoenix that he’s actually watchable on his crazy journey. While it often feels like things are more happening to Beau than he’s ever driving the story, he remains a worthwhile anchor for our attention.
Indeed, it’s credit to the actor that he holds your attention, and he’s joined by some suitably skilled co-stars, including Richard Kind, Hayley Squires, and Parker Posey, who arrives late on as the adult Elaine, and makes an impression with her limited screen time.
Some of the cast –– especially Kind –– feel like they’re wasted in tiny roles, but you can see why they might want to come and play in Aster’s strange sandbox. Lister-Jones, meanwhile, has more to chew on as Beau’s overbearing “smother” who evolves into the more distant version played by LuPone.
If you were expecting an easy, entertaining watch or something simple to take a date to, this is not the movie for you –– unless you’re a fan of complicated, weird, and downright standoffish arthouse fare.
(L to R) Joaquin Phoenix and director Ari Aster on the set of ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
‘Beau’s driving themes are guilt, fear and the endless, driving chaos of the modern world, reflecting on how we internalize our feelings, and they start to poison us. There are rampaging killers, Freudian images, and stories of how Beau’s father died in the act of conceiving him.
This is, as we’ve said, not a film that will inspire mild responses. You’re likely to either love or loathe it, depending on whether you get on board. And even then, the abrupt ending (after near three hours of surreal oddity) might jolt you out of that positivity.
Long tracts of the story are likely to invoke boredom if you’ve no tolerance for whimsy or ideas that appears to be weird for weirdness’ sake. Aster throws every cinematic trick in the book at this one, including animated sequences, and an opening scene that makes Beau’s journey through the birth canal into an unforgiving world appear like a battlefield thanks to a discordant soundtrack. There are grotesques and grime, and even a sequence where Phoenix, naked, wrestles with a man who unexpectedly drops into his bath.
Given the director’s history, there is also bloody violence, a big dose of satire and some real shocks here and there, though it’s also shot through with a lot more humor than either of his previous works. Through it all, you can feel like Aster has big issues on his mind but isn’t always able to communicate them in a way that makes you want to listen or understand.
And that’s a big problem at the core of ‘Beau’ –– though it’s good to see a director given free rein to make the movie he truly wants to –– there’s a big question of whether anyone really needed to see it in the first place. Plenty of films have explored child/parent relations, guilt, and emotional crises, and in a way that tries to connect with the audience. Aster seems more interested in the strangeness he can invent to get those concepts across.
Yet even as large swathes are almost designed to turn you off, there’s something to be said for the tone and the soundscape, which end up trickling into your subconscious and, unless you truly reject everything the movie has to offer, could still have you thinking about the story days after you see it.
Final Thoughts
What we have here is a confronting, unique movie, but not always for the good, and with . In all honesty, we’d say watch it if you’re in the mood for something challenging, but don’t say you weren’t warned.
‘Beau Is Afraid’ receives 6 out of 10 stars.
Joaquin Phoenix in director Ari Aster’s ‘Beau Is Afraid.’
One of the year’s scariest movies is getting even spookier, with a new director’s cut version of “Midsommar” set to hit theaters soon.
Writer-director Ari Aster‘s longer version of the horror hit will include both extended scenes and entirely new footage. The unrated feature will debut this weekend, beginning on August 30, in select theaters nationwide.
Here’s a sneak peek teaser of the extended edition, from indie studio A24:
Yep, still as insanely creepy as ever. We’d expect nothing less from Aster, the twisted mind behind 2018’s Toni Collette-starring “Hereditary.”
Here’s the official “Midsommar” synopsis, in case you haven’t already seen the movie (and been thoroughly freaked out):
Dani and Christian are a young American couple with a relationship on the brink of falling apart. But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani invites herself to join Christian and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. The carefree summer holiday in a land of eternal sunlight takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers invite their guests to partake in festivities that are increasingly disturbing.
Shall we call it “Longsommar”? Ari Aster’s extended director’s cut of his bright and colorful horror film “Midsommar” is debuting in one month.
The world premiere of the director’s cut, which runs about 30 minutes longer than the initial theatrical version (for a total of three hours), will take place at Lincoln Center in New York City on August 17.
Aster’s first cut of the horror film clocked in at three hours and 45 minutes. He took out 90 minutes to get the movie to its 147-minute theatrical runtime.
In “Midsommar,” Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor) are a young American couple whose relationship is crumbling. But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani joins Christian and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village.
In an interview with GameSpot, Aster described one scene he debated keeping in.
““There [was] a very big argument between Dani and Christian in the middle. That was the only time that we see Dani fight back and argue with Christian, and that was a big debate in the edit room, about whether we keep that or lose that,” Aster said.
“If you told me that I would have cut that scene before we went into production, I would have told you that you were crazy.”
Another scene that was cut or trimmed heavily depicted a more overt version of Dani’s psychotic break after discovering Christian was cheating on her.
As Aster told USA Today, “There were a lot of scenes that were cut, and probably a few that helped illustrate she was losing her grip on her sanity, which you hopefully still see.”
Happy 4th of July to Spidey: “Spider-Man: Far From Home” delivered $185 million debut from 4,636 venues in North America during its first six days in theaters.
The film, the second solo movie with Tom Holland as the teenage webslinger, got a head start by opening on the Tuesday ahead of Independence Day and collected $93 million over the three-day weekend. That makes it the second-largest Fourth of July holiday earner behind “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” which took in $97.8 million in 2011.
“Far From Home” also set a number of other records this week, including biggest Tuesday ticket sales of all time ($38 million), best Wednesday grosses for a Marvel movie ($27 million) and Sony’s biggest six-day opening weekend ever. (Sony and Marvel teamed up on this one. Ownership of Spider-Man has been complicated.)
A24
Also opening this weekend was folk horror film “Midsommar” the second movie from “Hereditary” director Ari Aster. The R-rated movie took in $6 million over the weekend and $10.9 million during its first five days of release.
The film stars Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor, as a couple who travel to Sweden for a festival. (Between this and “The Ritual,” we are rethinking any plans to travel to Sweden soon, thanks very much.)
“Midsommar” received mostly positive reviews, but audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore. That’s better than the “D+” handed out to “Hereditary,” but it also indicates some people might have been scared off from any more Aster films after “Hereditary,” an equally dark film about grief and messed-up family dynamics.
“Midsommar” took in roughly half of the $13 million “Hereditary” made in its inaugural weekend. “Hereditary” is still A24’s highest-grossing movie to date with $44 million in North America and $79 million globally.
Marvel Studios
Meanwhile, Disney-Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame” is a tad closer to catching up with “Avatar.” This weekend, it earned $3.1 million at the domestic box office and another $1.4 million overseas for a global tally of $2.77 billion. It’s now roughly $15 million behind “Avatar,” which still holds the record as the biggest movie of all time with $2.78 billion in ticket sales.
From zombies to slashers to demonic possessions, horror tends to be a seasonal genre. It’s also one where the little details make all of the difference between success and failure; some times that means tiny tweaks or exceptional style in the execution of a classic formula, and others it’s a subversion or full-on reimagining of everything audiences have come to expect. But those ideas have all existed in one form or another, for decades, and they evidence the durability of the genre itself and the sometimes overdue opportunity to breathe new life into a combination that has fallen out of fashion.
Ari Aster’s 2018 debut “Hereditary,” for example, explores the devastating depths of a family dealing with extreme loss and its own troubled legacy, but the young filmmaker does so while touching on elements of psychological horror and demonic possession. And his follow-up, “Midsommar,” arriving this week, looks mercilessly at a grieving young woman and her estranged boyfriend as they encounter a mysterious, bohemian community while vacationing in Sweden. The new film echoes the considerable tradition of a sub-genre known as “folk horror,” where pagan traditions and ancient rites claim the souls — and bodies — of the skeptical and unwilling. In our own pagan celebration, Moviefone offers a primer on just a few of the films that may have inspired the film (and others that share its folky DNA).
Benjamin Christensen’s documentary-style classic was the most expensive Scandinavian silent film ever made, and certainly one of the era’s most controversial because of its depictions of torture, nudity and sexual perversion. Not only was its “nonfiction” approach groundbreaking at the time, but Christensen’s film, an anthology, provides a uniquely academic and yet incredibly visceral look at the dangers of superstition in misunderstanding disease and mental illness.
This Swedish film famously served as inspiration for Wes Craven’s “The Last House On the Left,” but by itself Ingmar Bergman’s rape and revenge story offers plenty of complex and very powerful moments that don’t necessarily require the kind of graphic depictions of brutality that would come later.
“Witchfinder General” (1968)
American International Pictures
A film that has only grown in mystique since director Michael Reeves’ death from barbiturates just a year later, this obscure title helped establish many of the tropes of British folk horror while adapting Ronald Bassett’s novel of the same name, about a 17th-Century witch hunter and his heavily fictionalized exploits during the English Civil War.
Though it sounds like one of Mario Bava’s Italian horror odysseys, this underrated gem is actually a “Witchfinder General” follow-up (they’re both from the same film production company), about an English village taken over by demonic possession.
This film completes what has become known as the folk horror “Unholy Trinity” (along with “Witchfinder General” and “Blood on Satan’s Claw”) and is by far the most famous film of that sub-genre ever made, famously described by Cinefantastique as the “Citizen Kane” of horror films. Robin Hardy’s film follows a police sergeant investigating a girl’s disappearance who becomes ensconced in a community that has abandoned Christianity for Celtic paganism. Eep.
Fritz Kiersch directed this adaptation of Stephen King’s short story of the same name, about a small Nebraska town under the control of “He Who Walks Behind The Rows” and his 15-year-old disciple Isaac (John Franklin), who leads his fellow children in a murderous revolt against their parents and other adults.
Ben Wheatley co-wrote and directed this incredible, mesmerizing film about an ex-military man drawn into a mysterious and deadly game involving human sacrifice and a religious ritual he unwittingly becomes a part of. Featuring shocking violence and a devastating, unexpected ending, Wheatley’s film is shrouded in terrifying ambiguity. If you haven’t seen it, stop reading and go watch it now.
Robert Eggers’ film about a 1600s English family and the plague of maladies that befalls them is, like “Kill List,” an entrancing journey into the perils of superstition and suspicion. Anya Taylor-Joy perfectly captures the restless energy of a young woman eager to explore the adult world only to be blamed for events over which she has no control — because, of course, something more sinister is afoot. Or is it?
David Bruckner (“The Signal”) directed this adaptation of Adam Nevill’s novel of the same name about five college friends who encounter increasingly strange phenomenon after reuniting for a hike through the Swedish wilderness.
This oddly overlooked chiller from “The Raid” mastermind Gareth Evans was in production at the same time as “Midsommar” and takes a more classically autumnal approach to folk horror. Dan Stevens plays a man in 1905 London who travels to a forbidden island to rescue his sister from a secretive sect. (Trust us when we say that is the tip of the iceberg.) Profoundly disturbing, “Apostle” really goes for it in ways that few horror movies do these days, and even though it was only released last year, seems ripe for rediscovery.
