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.

Eddington, the latest film from Hereditary director Ari Aster, is a dark comedy about COVID-fueled chaos in a fictional New Mexico town. The film wades into hot-button topics regarding police brutality, the Black Lives Matter movement, AI investment, and mask mandates, among others. Ari Aster is asking for trouble with Eddington.