When Ari Aster made his feature film debut in 2018 with the chilling Sundance horror hit “Hereditary,” it seemed to herald a new king of horror for the “elevated” era. As immaculately made as the miniature houses constructed by Toni Collette in the film,

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. — Past a petrified mastodon skull and display cases of glittering gypsum and halite, Ari Aster is gesturing to a room where, conjuring a bit of movie magic, he made Joaquin Phoenix fall through a roof, onto the bones of Geronimo.

The director’s polarizing new film comes after the commercial failure of ‘Beau Is Afraid.’ He’s not not worried.