In Review: 'Beau is Afraid,’ 'Evil Dead Rise'

Two new films explore two different sorts of scary creatures: demonic undead monsters and mothers.

Beau is Afraid
Dir. Ari Aster
179 min.

The opening scene of Beau is Afraid finds Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix) in the midst of a session with a kind-faced, unnamed therapist (Stephen McKinley-Henderson) who encourages him to express himself and tells him that any conflicting feelings he might have about his mother are perfectly understandable. It is, from all appearances, the safest of safe spaces. But, as this and every subsequent scene of Ari Aster’s anxious three-hour odyssey will prove, there is no safe space for Beau and, not coincidentally, no space walled off from the intrusions of his mother Mona (played in flashbacks by Zoe Lister Jones and in the present by Patti Lupone), who dominates his conversation with the therapist even before interrupting it with a phone call. 

Even the therapist’s pharmaceutical remedies have an element of danger: they’re great but experimental and must be taken with water. This seemingly simple instruction plays into the first of Beau is Afraid’s extended, cave-dark comic set pieces. Returning to an apartment above a porn house in a neighborhood that looks like a cross between a war zone, the Times Square of Taxi Driver, and the Gotham of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Beau finds himself dodging vagrants and other threats as he prepares to visit his mother. This, for a variety of reasons best discovered by watching the film, does not go according to plan, as misunderstandings become mishaps and mishaps cascade into catastrophe and bleakness envelops it all.

The first, and best, stretch of Beau is Afraid plays a bit like Playtime as reimagined by Robert Crumb. It’s expertly orchestrated, fills every corner of the frame (sometimes with chilling graffiti), and remains fully committed to squeezing laughs out of its hero’s non-stop descent into despair. Paunchy, balding, inarticulate, and unfailingly meek—he begins almost every interaction with the words “I’m sorry”—Beau begins the film as a broken man who’s shredded and atomized as he makes his way home by way of a recuperative stint in the home of a suburban couple (played by Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane), and visit to a forest that’s where a company of traveling players puts on performances that blur the line between actors and their audience.

Beau is similarly blurry. An explosion of ideas strung together by dream logic then slowed to half speed, it uses Phoenix’s intense, tortured, clownish performance as a gateway to a world that seemingly reshapes itself to take the form of Beau’s worst fears wherever he goes. It’s relentlessly inventive, often bitingly funny, and just as often wearying. As Beau’s travails deepen and repeat Aster lets scenes play out until what was shocking and funny becomes annoying until (usually) circling back to being shocking and funny again. It’s a departure for Aster, best known for the horror films Hereditary and Midsommar, but not that much of a departure. Here he finds new uses for his gift with discomfort, even if Beau is Afraid is ultimately most interested in twisting a familiar story of a son worn down by an overbearing mother into strange new shapes. It’s an easy film to lose patience with and exhaustion seems to be part of the point. Watching it, it’s sometimes hard not to wish it would end. But try forgetting it once it’s over. —Keith Phipps

Beau is Afraid expands widely tonight.

Evil Dead Rise
Dir. Lee Cronin
98 min. 

What is an Evil Dead movie? Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were able to define and refine the answer to that question over three films that ultimately evolved into hyper-stylized horror-comedy that turned an epic confrontation with ancient evil into a one-man Three Stooges routine. The Fede Álvarez reboot in 2013 tossed out the comedy and amped up the gory gothic intensity, emphasizing the spiritual menace of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, “The Book of the Dead,” as a firehose of demonic mayhem. It was probably a smart move, given the absence of an inimitable goofball like Campbell, and Álvarez’s technical chops are virtually unmatched in Hollywood. But it was nonetheless deflating. All the color had been drained away, along with all the fun. 

Evil Dead Rise continues in that vein, as an impressive stylistic exercise that uncorks as much gore and puke and satanic pea soup as possible, with callbacks to lines like “I’ll swallow your soul” or “dead by dawn” to firm up the connection to the franchise’s past. But writer-director Lee Cronin hijacks the series for his own purposes, tipping his cap to the flying eyeballs and speeding POV evil-cam shots in Raimi’s films, but aiming for more of a balls-to-the-wall visceral experience. It feels disappointingly rudimentary overall, but Cronin’s gift for gothic atmosphere and barebones efficiency keeps it humming along smoothly. 

After a quality opening stinger—afforded by the luxury of a no-name, largely Australian cast top to bottom—Evil Dead Rise settles permanently in a creepy, soon-to-be-condemned Los Angeles apartment building where tattoo artist Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) lives with her three children, two teenagers (Morgan Davies and Gabrielle Echols) and a little girl (Nell Fisher). Not long after Ellie’s estranged sister Beth (Lily Sullivan), a guitar tech on perpetual tour, arrives for an extended stay, an earthquake rips through the foundation, opening up a strange vault beneath the parking garage. Within that vault, of course, is the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis and a series of old recordings reciting its translated incantations. Curiosity literally kills the cat at one point, but a grim supernatural force strikes Ellie first and comes for her sister, children and neighbors soon after. 

Cronin gooses up the stakes a little by revealing that Ellie is pregnant, making this a dry run for how she might protect her future child. But Evil Dead Rise doesn’t cave to sentimentality. There are few characters who aren’t fair game for this monster and they’re so wildly overmatched that the film begins to resemble the original Alien, where no one can leave, most get slaughtered, and the fate of the crew rests in one woman’s intrepid hands. Cronin pops off a handful of thrilling sequences, like reimagining the limbs of the infamous tree attack from The Evil Dead as elevator wires or shooting an action sequence through a keyhole, with the players zipping in and out of the frame. A few grace notes, no surprises. It’ll do. But is it wrong to ask for something more? — Scott Tobias

Evil Dead Rise opens widely tonight.