A new title and poster have been released for Ari Aster's next movie Beau is Afraid. What was originally called Disappointment Blvd is starring Joaquin Phoenix in a supposed 3-hour-long surrealist horror epic. If any other filmmaker was releasing a movie with that description, most would be justifiably skeptical, because it just sounds like a recipe for disaster for most filmmakers to take on. But somehow for Ari Aster, it is a rather exciting prospect to hear. It just sounds like something anyone would want from the mind behind Hereditary and Midsommar-and some great short films.
It's mostly from Ari Aster's ability to create new, exciting, and weird horror movies that touch on so many primal and deep fears. Horror movies are fun to go to, but going to an Ari Aster film will have anyone geared up for trauma and night terrors that will last for the next month. Ari Aster even went as far as to make a horror movie in broad daylight, and he made it one of the scariest films in the last decade. His movies are chock-full of scenes that reach deep down and stay with the audience for days. But these may be the ones that go deeper than any others.
5 Hereditary: Seance
At bare bones, this scene is a grieving family desperately trying to cope, but in the hands of Ari Aster it has a much different tone. But this scene is when eerie ness sets in for the audience. A friend of Annie's mom, Joan, brings Annie over to do a seance in a time of great grief, but after Annie leaves before finishing, she continues it with her family. But rather than pure hope and positivity that may come with one, skepticism and questions about the supposed friend rear their heads in this scene. There's something off about her, the seance, Annie's sleepwalking, and the entire situation as a whole. Although it isn't directly and overtly hinted at, it lingers and sets with the audience that they need to be wary. It's the point in the movie when things go from horrid to imaginable.
4 Midsommar: Gassed
This stays throughout the entire movie. The images and feelings that this scene evokes don't leave until the next morning. Playing as the inciting incident of the movie, the protagonist, Dani, played by Florence Pugh, has her life changed forever when her sitter commits murder-suicide with her parents by filling the house with carbon monoxide, killing their parents in their sleep and herself by taping a funnel with the fumes to her face. The images in the scene are indescribable and the only way to know how the emotions it incites are to feel them for yourself. What makes the scene even more impactful is how Aster keeps putting the images of Dani's sister with the funnel over her face throughout the movie not only reminding Dani of the trauma but the audience as well.
3 Hereditary: Annie's Possession
After over an hour of unbearable dread and eeriness, everything culminates when Annie is possessed with only Peter left. It turns into a game of cat and mouse with Peter running away from his possessed mother. But instead of the previously mentioned scene, this one is overtly horrifying. The most upsetting part of this scene isn't seeing Annie clinging to the ceiling in one of the best jump scares ever, seeing a naked person sitting in the doorway smiling, or seeing Annie saw off her own head. The most gut-wrenching part is seeing Peter in the attic screaming at his 'mommy' to please stop. It's hard to watch but is an amazing scene in regard to pure terror.
2 Midsommar: Cliff Jump
Midsommar touches on a lot of trauma and raw fears. Aster knows what to eat at the audience because he uses very human triggers and horrors. When it comes to the theater experience, not many are so obviously inherently disturbing as a human being as Midsommar's cliff jump scene. Seeing someone jump from a tall height and landing very much does the same as the gassed scene does. It brings up the horrifying side of humanity, and it tucks itself into the brain for the rest of the runtime. Both the gassed scene and this just show how you don't need monsters or jump scares to terrify the audience, just going into human instinct will create scenes that will borderline traumatize the audience and thusly make it more effective.
1 Midsommar: Dani crying
Not many might be expecting this pick and some may not think it deserves a spot. But the power and purpose of this scene alone give it a perfect reason to be on the list. As mentioned, Aster doesn't just focus on the physical to scare with jump scares or gore. Not to say he doesn't, but his scares go further than that in the realm of the psychological. Seeing the manipulation of Dani who is already extremely overwhelmed with her trauma is heartbreaking and hard to watch. That manipulation is on full display as he has a full breakdown and the cult who is manipulating her then surrounds Dani and screams and cries in rhythm with her. It doesn't seem like much on paper, but it is a scene that shows someone the audience feels for being abused further.