The First Trailer For Ari Aster’s ‘Beau Is Afraid’ Has Us Tripping

If you’ve been paying attention to the horror genre in the past five years, you probably know who Ari Aster is. He’s the brilliant director with the sick, twisted mind that brought us 2018’s Hereditary and 2019’s Midsommar. Aster delivered so many scares in his feature debut, Hereditary, that it became one of the all-time, highest-grossing A24 films at the time. Five years later, and we still talk about that car ride scene. Now, Aster is back with a brand-new film, Beau Is Afraid—and it looks like a hell of a trip.

When the first poster for Beau Is Afraid dropped, all we knew was that Joaquin Phoenix would star in the film. He appears in the poster as three versions of himself, each slightly older than the other—including a young boy who appears to resemble him as a kid. Who else had Joaquin Phoenix going full Benjamin Button on their Ari Aster movie bingo card? We had no idea what to expect, but that didn’t stop people from wildly speculating its plot on the Internet. Now, with this morning’s release of Beau of Afraid‘s first trailer, streaming above, we at least know that the film also stars Nathan Lane, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan, and Parker Posey.

Well, I thought that more questions would be answered by the trailer. I should’ve known better! Aster isn’t the type to put all his cards on the table. In the Beau Is Afraid trailer, Aster plays tricks on our eyes, keeping us from being able to decipher any sort of linear story. There are car accidents! Misery-like kidnappings! Reality melting into animation! And a Truman Show-esque stage where Phoenix finds himself? What the the Asterian hell is going on?

No matter whether Aster intends to crack us up, make us cry, or terrify us, we’re strapped in and ready for the ride. Let’s find home together, Joaquin!