Aster’s Impressive Filmography and Influence
Ari Aster’s films are wildly popular with audiences worldwide. Aster’s refreshing approach to cinema does not capitalize on overused jump scares and haunted dolls that travel across the United States like they’re in their own Antiques Road Show. Instead, Aster approaches horror in a way that tears the deep-seated trauma away from each viewer, mangles it, and hands it back to them when the lights come back on.
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Two of Aster’s popular films, Hereditary and Midsommar, made it on the New York Times Top 100 Movies of the 21st Century, placing #62 and #99, respectively. Given that both of these films debuted in the last eight years, Aster proves that not only is his prominence in the industry warranted, but it’s also noticed by both critics and audiences alike. Aster’s name is one to be remembered, especially given the influence of his films in pop culture some eight years later. As a cinephile myself, I have a funny feeling that even though the world is not currently ready for Eddington and its discourse, the film will soon be praised and viewed in line with Aster’s first two successful full-length films (if not better!).
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Binary Movie-Goer Reception
Ari Aster exists on the plane between a cinematic god and a self-satisfied layman holding a script and a camera, which is made obvious by the very binary reviews from movie-goers and professional film critics. While some praise Eddington’s deep, surreal dive into the 2O2O landscape, others critique that Aster uses “stale” 2O2O news headlines to prove, simply, that the world and the people who populate it are inherently morally disappointing.
Eddington is about two men: A small-town New Mexico liberal-leaning mayor and the town’s sheriff, who very apparently leans far to the right. The movie takes place in May 2O2O, and the plot begins with the famous mask mandate and its political significance. We are all familiar with the extensive divisive impact that 2O2O had on us all… and this movie takes that and lights a fire under it.
For starters, Eddington flopped at the box office in its first few days, only grossing a little over $4 million domestically. For comparison, Aster’s film before this, Beau Is Afraid, grossed $12 million. These films were inherently more divisive among audiences given their content, which, in my opinion, departed from more conventional horror formulas as executed in Hereditary and Midsommar, which grossed $87 million and $48 million at the box office, respectively. What is so horrifying about a crazy, strung-out Joaquin Phoenix running around in hospital garb and a GAD diagnosis? How about two politically-opposed New Mexico-born commoners battling it out in the height of 2O2O’s health crisis? It’s real.
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Eddington and Beau Is Afraid did not receive the same treatment as Midsommar and Hereditary because they are surrealist and de-prioritize classic horror elements. The films feast on the silent moments in scenes and reenergize themselves using the audience’s emotional reaction to the silence. Aster’s films feel like you’re taking a day of PTO in a surreal limbo, but the feeling you’re left with is completely applicable to and caused by things that occur in your real life. That realization is uncomfortable, and most viewers prefer being afraid of a monster than being frightened by their local politicians or the fellas who eerily hang around outside their apartment window. Of course, not everyone wants something to think about; they want escapist horror that doesn’t exist outside the theater. Is there such a thing as too thoughtful? Maybe. Would I mark Eddington as such? Nope.
A24’s Influence on Modern Cinema
Listen, I love a good Blumhouse film every once in a while. Many popular franchises such as The Conjuring, Insidious, and Annabelle will likely be referred to as 21st-century cult classics. They’re easy to digest and don’t beg the viewer to think about the other scary elements of real life—politics, climate crises, economic collapse. Instead, they utilize a human’s fear of the afterlife and demonic, unholy, inhuman beings to present a fantastical horror that could exist outside of the cinemascape, but probably doesn’t.
To put it plainly: Jump scares, when done so incessantly and poorly, are getting old. Other A24-produced horror flicks aside from Ari Aster’s filmography, like Men and The Lighthouse, challenge typical conventions of horror that many are sick of after the fourth The Conjuring film. Even demon-led plotlines featured in films like Talk to Me are executed in a way that pulls at the wiring of a viewer’s brain and incorporates inherently human elements to influence the viewer’s perspective of the world after the film is over. Do you think twice about haunted dolls after Annabelle in the way you think about the male species after a viewing of Men?
My point? Ari Aster and A24-produced films as a whole are inspired by classic horror concepts. However, they transform them into mania-inducing warnings for the 21st century and beyond. What is scarier than that?
Cinephiles Want Something Real to be Afraid Of, and films like Eddington Give Them That
Aside from Ari Aster’s full-length films, he also released an eerie short psychological horror titled The Strange Thing About the Johnsons in 2011. For the sake of the short’s content, I’ll keep it brief. Years before Aster dipped his toes into what some might call more conventional horror with Hereditary, he put an Aster-esque twist on his short. Aster utilizes real, horrifying concepts that exist within familial and romantic structures, and flips the typical narrative surrounding exploitative maltreatment on its head. Aster relies on this role reversal to turn something already horrid into something that makes viewers feel even more uncomfortable. As active members of society, we are privy to the disturbing things that happen all around us. But when our predisposed ideas about the world are rewritten and challenged, we are left to sit with that deeply disturbing discomfort.
Eddington is a social commentary on the horrors of the world today. Whichever “side” you are on or stance you take, political unrest, worldwide health crises, and corporate greed are things to be afraid of. Jordan Peele, who is the mastermind director behind Get Out, Us, and Nope, similarly utilizes the horror genre to amplify much-needed social commentary. In Peele’s case, he focuses heavily and primarily on the Black American experience in a continually tumultuous America. Having real social horrors depicted in a surrealist way amplifies the horror of reality tenfold, and that’s what directors like Peele and Aster aim to achieve.
Funnily enough, Get Out and Us are Blumhouse-produced films. This indicates that horror-focused production companies can stray away from stale storylines fixated on possession, haunted dolls, and overall formulaic story structure. Though Eddington has yet to receive the king treatment at the box office and among certain critics, I say it is the beginning of a new horror genre that mirrors real life perfectly and insidiously. Here’s hoping that 2025 won’t become the topic of Aster’s next feature film…
