This is a movie that had people walking out furious and sickened during festival screenings, so of course I had to see it. And of course it was directed by acclaimed provocateur Lars von Trier, whose films are often considered either brilliant (by eccentric film nerd standards) or hot, terrible garbage by everyone else. So all in all, this movie about an insane serial killer is a perfect storm for a review here.
Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Matt Dillon, Riley Keough
So why did all those people walk out of this, anyway, you might be asking? Well, because the movie is basically wholly comprised of trolling and edge-lord stuff. It's like a peek into the mind of a 4chan board or something, only done with some actual humor and good directing. I couldn't stop watching just because I had no clue what was going to happen next. It's basically like Dexter if Dexter had a lot to say about how much he hated women. It's American Psycho with no sense of irony.
It's a completely immoral movie, too, which is often the worse sin for some people. You can have some blood and guts in it, but if a movie seems to be on the Right Side™ then it's often much less offensive to a lot of people than a movie that roots for its bad guy and doesn't even try to have a message. The House That Jack Built is about a serial killer named Jack (woah, what a leap) and we get zero insight into his character, no sympathy or backstory. Just him chronicling five times he killed people over a period of years.
There's one time where he kills two kids with a sniper while hunting and then forces their mom to try and feed pie to one, which is bad because too much pie will make a child fat. And, oh, hell, who am I kidding? Making jokes like that is beneath me for this movie. It's so obvious it's like a big neon sign. The movie itself is already kind of a joke anyway and me joking about it is the extra whipped cream on top that nobody wanted.
It's horrifically, almost parodically violent – the stuff that happens crosses a line from gruesome into just plain goofy a lot of the time. I mean it's still horrible to watch, but it's so over the top that it actually kind of lessens the impact at times – like, one scene he kills a woman and then has to keep coming back over and over to make sure he didn't accidentally leave a speck of blood anywhere. That's just ridiculous. Another time he cuts off a woman's tit and then pins it to the hood of a cop car. Take THAT, cops! Do you now see the error of your ways, police officers?! What deep social commentary this is...
There's also a bunch of inner monologuing and dialogue that's mostly just him raving about nothing. It's all a lot of nonsense. A lot of it comes off like stuff you'd read on some Incel message board in a dark hole of the internet. One time he shouts at a victim that “it's always the man's fault and the woman is the victim.” A few times he goes into lengthy screeds about Nazi architecture and you even see a few pictures of Hitler. ARE YOU OFFENDED YET??? That seems to be the only real goal here. No bigger story, just provocation. As much as some reviews will point out that you barely get any character insight or development, no reason why this guy is the way he is – I don't think it's necessary. If you want to know why he is the way he is, just log into Reddit or 4chan and find one of the many alt-right rat-holes where these people congregate.
Oh, and the finale is a trippy, 2001: A Space Odyssey-esque journey into Hell full of creepy Halloween lights and dramatic sounds. Then he falls into the abyss and that's the end of it. Honestly, it would've been funnier if he went to heaven or if there was just nothing after death. That would have been more fitting than 'the Christian idea of Hell is right.' Kind of an orthodox way to end such a gritty, edgy movie, huh?
This mostly seemed like what I said above, purely an exercise in offending people. If it wasn't so funny at parts and so well acted, it would basically just be a sloppy diatribe by an alt-right dude-bro on the internet. It's hardly anything substantial. Seems like von Trier hearing what everyone said about him, including a ban from the Cannes film festival for some shit he said about Nazis years ago, and really just everything about his other films, and then was like 'I'll just make the movie everyone thought I would make, anyway.' And then he basically made a very well made internet troll comment and put that on screen. But it doesn't have the sharp, vicious point of a Dogville or the sheer misanthropy and misery of Antichrist – not even close.
In a way it seems every provocative filmmaker could very easily slip into this mode. I didn't find very much depth here. It was entertaining at points just for how utterly depraved it was, and then at other points it was just cringeworthy – that tit-cutting scene was pretty awful to watch. I'm sure von Trier's point here, lashing back at critics and just fucking with everyone, was fun for him, and he'll get some views from all the controversy. But in terms of depth and actual quality it just seems like a big-budget equivalent of a guy screaming at the sky just to vent anger.
Image not mine; credit belongs to its owner.
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