Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid Trailer Is Not At All What Fans Expected

Ari Aster has quickly risen to become one of the most prominent voices in modern horror. Between the familial drama of "Hereditary" and the comic tragedy of "Midsommar," Aster has marked himself more and more with each new project as someone to watch closely. 

Naturally, then, the hype train has been careening down the tracks in preparation for his latest project, "Beau is Afraid." Now that the trailer is here, though, it's hard to say if "Beau is Afraid" – which actually began as a short film – is what anyone was expecting from Aster.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The movie looks like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" as filtered through the mind of Stanley Kubrick — or, in a word, the film looks awesome. The marketing team responsible for cutting the trailer together did an amazing job, as our first look at "Beau is Afraid" seems to show our protagonist, Beau (Joaquin Phoenix), unstuck in time and losing his mind as a result. 

Either way, the trailer is throwing people off in all the right ways, if the comments on social media are any indication.

The first trailer for "Beau is Afraid" has finally arrived, and it looks like it's living up to the pedigree of Ari Aster's previous two features, despite its surprising approach. While the trailer seems to be deliberately vague, showing off its penchant for style and clever editing tricks rather than explaining the plot, commenters seemed to love what they saw as they heaped praise on this first look. 

"This looks insane! Not what I was expecting at all. Definitely seeing this in theaters," wrote one YouTube commenter. The user is on to something here, as the mad trailer for "Beau is Afraid" seems to juxtapose cute, child-like visuals with a growing wave of existential dread that permeates throughout.

"Was not expecting Aster's new film to be somewhat of a comedy, but I am all in for it!" wrote another commenter. As mentioned above, "Midsommar" definitely leans more into a sort of twisted comedy that helps to offset its soul-crushing themes and terrifying visuals, and "Beau is Afraid" looks to potentially be leaning even further in that direction. 

"Not what I expected but I'm really looking forward to it, the use of expensive cinema to translate Beau's story is going to be fascinating," said another fan. Hopefully, with all of this hype, and what indeed looks to be a much bigger budget, "Beau is Afraid" can deliver for Aster fans — even if it's not what they expected from the auteur's third film.