15 'WTF Did I Just Pay To See' Horror Movies

Ari Aster's Beau is Afraid, a three-hour surrealist horror-comedy about a painfully anxious man (Joaquin Phoenix) travelling to his mother's funeral, is one of a kind. They have never made em' like this. Never. 

If someone was to create a drinking game where the participants have to drink every time the film delivers a 'WTF' moment, the first hour of Beau is Afraid alone would probably render all of the participants unconscious. There is literally at least one jaw-dropping, WTF moment every quarter of an hour throughout the movie's beefy run-time. 

The film's opening shot depicts Beau's birth from his POV, Beau runs naked through the street and gets stabbed by a nude serial killer, a teenage girl takes her own life by drinking paint, there's a lengthy animated sequence in which Beau becomes the protagonist in a tragic play he's watching, a woman dies of rigor mortis during sex, Beau's real father turns out to be a giant penis monster who then impales someone and the film's climax is him being put on trial for perceived slights against his domineering mother.

Basically, "WTF?!" doesn't even cover it, not by a long shot. 

Artistically, it is perhaps self-indulgent and uneven but damn it, it is impossible not to admire the film's ambition and stunning imagery. If nothing else, Ari Aster deserves praise for crafting one of the boldest and most bonkers horror movies ever made and for actually getting people to finance it too. Bravo.