Released: December 2018(USA)
Director: Lars von Trier
Run Time: 152 Minutes
Rated R
Distributor: IFC Films/Shout! Factory
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Cast:
Matt Dillon: Jack
Bruno Ganz: Verge
Uma Thurman: Lady 1
Siobhan Fallon Hogan: Lady 2
Sofie Gråbøl: Lady 3
Riley Keough: Simple
When people talk about controversial movies, they generally refer to specific genre films. Even more specifically, the horror and thriller genres. While most fans would pick The Exorcist or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and rightfully so, I would say controversy in film goes back even further. I would say that Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was controversial when it was released back in 1960 with it’s infamous shower stabbing scene. To be fair, though, it was during the 70s when horror movies started catching a lot of flack for their content. Wes Craven’s directorial debut, The Last House on the Left was particularly notorious for it’s graphic depiction of violence and sexual assault. In fact, the tag-line for the film was, “It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.” The Exorcist really pissed people off with its content involving a young girl being possessed by a demon. It earned it’s controversy. So did I Spit on Your Grave back in ’76. Some of these movies were put on the United Kingdom’s infamous “Video Nasties” list. It wasn’t the 70s that produced some controversial movies. We saw stuff coming out of the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and the 2010s. Oddly enough, one of the most controversial movies to come out of the last decade was Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It wasn’t a horror film, but it was one that really split audiences down the middle. You never know when a movie will generate any degree of controversy. Certain directors, on the other hand, can be notorious for directing some…interesting movies. Darren Aronofsky recently directed Mother! It was high-level abstract film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem that also divided people. But there’s a director that I had heard about and he’s made a number of controversial films over the past 20 years, Lars von Trier. This man is responsible for directing films like Nymphomaniac, Meloncholia, Antichrist, and most recently, The House That Jack Built. This is my first foray into Trier territory, so I can only judge the man by this movie for the time being.
The House That Jack Built is centered around a highly intelligent, but OCD-suffering serial killer named Jack. Over the course of 5 incidents, Jack describes to an off-screen character, Verge, about different ideas surrounding architecture, violence in the media and movies and other topics while he meticulously hunts and kills people. To say anymore about this film would be to spoil the whole thing, and I really don’t want to do that. I’m not going to sugar-coat it: This movie goes to some really dark territory. Yet, at the same time, there’s a really twisted sense of humor peppered throughout the whole thing. While it’s not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, I did get a chuckle out of some situations that I would not normally laugh at. It’s actually a very interesting story about how broken a person really is and how they deal with that. Jack is a charismatic dude, but when you peel back the layers, there’s an ugly monster lying in wait. Von Trier is known for writing some pretty complex stories from what I understand. While Von Trier is clearly self-aware at what he’s doing here, there are a number of situations throughout the film where it feels like he’s being incredibly self-indulgent. He’s notorious for having an ego, but this film takes it to another level and it gets in the way of the story at times.
One of the most interesting aspects about the film is not necessarily the kills, I’ll get to that, but rather what happens between incidents. Jack has a dialogue with a character named Verge that gets really philosophical at times with Jack describing how killing influences his ability to build a house, and Verge counters with how corrupt that kind of thinking is. It’s a really interesting back-and-forth that’s often peppered with a number of still images and historical footage of various time periods including World War II. While Jack is the central figure in the film, we aren’t really given much backstory into why he is the way he is. Even less is said about his victims who are mostly not particularly likable, especially the first victim played by Uma Thurman. The character’s a bitch, and we really couldn’t wait to see how she bites the dust. Outside of the character of Simple, we aren’t given enough to have an emotional connection to anybody outside of Jack, and I’m guessing that was Trier’s intent. Again, it doesn’t always work. If the only character that you connect with is a terrible human being, that makes it really difficult to care about what happens to anybody else. Character development? Jack eventually outgrows his OCD somewhat and takes more chances with his murders, but that’s it. Not terribly compelling character-work.
The House That Jack Built was apparently brutal enough for 100 people to walk out of the screening at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. Is the violence in the film really that brutal? Yes…and no. No in the fact that the violence isn’t super graphic with the exception of one or two victims, but the rest is pretty tame. Yes, because it’s often the idea that tends to more controversial than the act itself. Incident 3 will probably go down in history as one of the most controversial moments in the film and rightfully so. Anybody who has seen the film will know exactly what I’m talking about. No, the violence isn’t necessarily shocking in terms of how gruesome it is, although there are a couple of moments as I said where it is gory. Rather, it’s how creatively sudden some of these deaths are. The first death scene involves a tire-jack to the face. It’s brutal, but it’s quick, and most of them tend to be that way. Simple’s predicament is the only one that really doesn’t deserve what happens to her. She gets the knife, but it’s the verbal abuse that Jack levies at her before it all happens that’s legitimately disturbing, not necessarily because of him threatening her, but rather that nobody is coming to save her. Ultimately, the level of violence in the film is certainly brutal, but I don’t think it’s as savage as everybody seemed to make it out to be. Incident 3, though is where a lot of people drew the line.
There is definitely some humor here that I found to be pretty effective. After Jack kills victim number 2, his OCD won’t allow him to leave until the crime scene is scrubbed clean. He ends up going back into the house to make sure it’s clean. I’m sure I’m going to Hell for this, but when he started dragging a body behind his van, I couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit at how ridiculous it looks. Not only that, but his attempt to get into the woman’s house is strangely amusing. Yet, a major problem keeps coming up. See, I initially accused the first victim of being a bit of a bitch, but the fact is is that a lot of the victims in this movie aren’t particularly smart or likable. Lars von Trier’s movies have been notorious for being insensitive at best and deeply misogynistic at worst. There are other issues at play with The House That Jack Built. For one, the movie is overly long at 2.5 hours. You could cut about 15-20 minutes, and the movie would still be the same. The pacing can be off at times as a result. Also, the constant use of David Bowie’s Fame was a constant source of irritation. I will say this though, the final 20 minutes of the movie are absolutely bonkers. I won’t say more than that, but it’s really spectacular.
So, is The House That Jack Built as controversial as everybody says it is? To a certain extent, yes. Unfortunately, Von Trier’s massive ego has weighed down what could’ve been a really great movie with some incredibly questionable decision-making. While I haven’t seen any of his other works, I can’t fully recommend The House That Jack Built. Even if there weren’t any issues, I still don’t think I could recommend it because of it’s extremely grim and bleak nature. That said, I can’t say that people SHOULDN’T see it. Ultimately, I truly appreciate what Lars von Trier was going for here, and I think he got more right than he got wrong, but I really do wish he would reel himself in from time to time, because his ego is cashing checks that he can’t afford. Bottom line: I DO like it, as Matt Dillon puts in one of the best performances of his career and the setups to the murders are creative enough to get a pass. Not only that, the film is beautifully shot. It has some outstanding cinematography. I do question the use of Nazi imagery in the film though, and the videos of animals being hunted. It isn’t as graphic as Cannibal Holocaust was as far as violence against animals goes, but it’s pretty unsettling regardless. Mr. von Trier is a provocateur that doesn’t care if you hate his movies as long as you really hate them. He’s more interested in getting a reaction rather than crafting film at this point. I’m still processing what I just saw, so I won’t be giving this one a score for a while.
My Final Recommendation: For fans of shock cinema, check it out. Everybody else, be very careful with this one.