10 Horror Movie Secrets They'll Never Tell You
1. What Does It All Mean? - Beau Is Afraid
Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid is categorically a not-for-everyone movie, but whether you love it, hate it, or fall somewhere in-between, it's fair to say that Aster does a stellar job of keeping the reality of the situation teetering on an ambiguous razor's edge.
Are the increasingly surreal sights Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) encounters - like, most disturbingly, a giant penis monster hanging out in the attic of his family estate - to be taken at face value, or are they imagined in his anxiety-riddled brain? Or is it a little from column A and a little from column B?
Aster has made it clear in interviews that he doesn't have much interest in shedding any light on the matter, beyond affirming that the film's central theme is guilt - something most anyone watching could surely pick up on.
And honestly, it's just as well that Aster would prefer Beau Is Afraid to live on as a gorgeous, hilarious, dreamlike mess of a movie rather than demystify it and ruin everyone's fun.