Before Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix) even enters the world, his life is defined by terror. Beau Is Afraid, the third feature from Hereditary and Midsommar director Ari Aster, begins in complete darkness, yet we hear guttural screams that we can’t define. As we try to find our bearings at the very beginning (a struggle that will last for the next three hours), we learn that we are seeing Beau’s birth from his perspective, and that while the world that he’s being born into is loud, terrifying, and uncertain, Beau is quiet. In fact, it’s this silence that makes him equally unsettling to his mother and doctors around him. It isn’t until the doctor slaps newborn baby Beau, causing him to cry, that Beau finally makes a peep. It’s almost as if Beau not immediately meeting the horrors of the world at their level also makes him a threat to those already in this world.