First look at Beau is Afraid from Hereditary and Midsommar director Ari Aster

The first trailer for Ari Aster's Beau is Afraid, starring Joaquin Phoenix, has been released.

Aster has two feature films under his belt so far as writer/director - Hereditary and Midsommar - both of which received acclaim from critics as well as being hits at the box office.

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Beau is Afraid has been in production for three years and the official premise reads:

'Beau Is Afraid is described as a decades-spanning surrealist horror film set in an alternate present in which Phoenix plays an extremely anxious but pleasant-looking man who has a fraught relationship with his overbearing mother and never knew his father. When his mother dies, he makes a journey home that involves some wild supernatural threats.'

As well as Phoenix in the title role, the movie features an ensemble cast including Nathan Lane, Richard Kind Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan, Kylie Rogers, Parker Posey, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Hayley Squires, Michael Gandolfini and Zoe Lister-Jones.

Aster himself has described Beau is Afraid as "four-hour long nightmare comedy".

Though the new trailer didn't give too much away in terms of plot, which involves supernatural elements, we can see that Beau's relationship with his mother is key to the story. There will be several incarnations of the character of Beau at different ages.

McKinley Henderson praised Aster and Joaquin Phoenix for their chemistry working together on-set, telling The Hollywood Reporter:

"Joaquin is really a nice person. He and Ari were so simpatico, and they worked together for the whole film. I came in pretty close to the end of the shoot and so they had been working a while. And their way of working together was like they were really old friends. They could get upset and make up in the span of seconds, it seemed. But the work was always the better for it."

Before it was titled Beau is Afraid, it was previously called Disappointment Boulevard.

Beau is Afraid trailer