The House That Jack Built: Director's Cut - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The House That Jack Built: Director's Cut



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


​

Movie
Lars Von Trier is a bit of an acquired taste as a director. He likes to push boundaries to the extreme, and make controversial films in his search for the perfect art. He’s been hit or miss lately, but has put out some fantastic works such as Dogville, Melancholia and Europa. However his last couple of projects outside of Melancholia have been rather lackluster. I know Antichrist is a bit of half and half film, but pretty much everyone agreed that Nymphomaniac (part 1 and 2) were abysmal efforts by the Danish artist filmmaker. I was REALLY interested in The House That Jack Built though, as it was a change of pace for the director and went straight into the horror category. Supposedly the Cannes film festival was it’s debut back in 2018, and it got some SERIOUSLY mixed results. He supposedly went so gory that he had to trim it back a few minutes for it’s theatrical run, and audience members were either in love with the film, or repulsed by it.

I went in with an open mind, as I’ve found that Lars Von Trier is a movie maker that I can’t just recommend straight up due to his odd desires to be controversial. Sometimes he makes a great film, full of nuance and thoughtful deliberation, and other times he goes so overboard that even his intended audience doesn’t really grasp what he’s trying to do. As a full on arthouse horror movie, I knew I HAD to check it out, and Scream Factory giving us both the rated and the unrated cuts to enjoy (or endure) for this release. Well, after watching both cuts on two separate days to let the film sink in, I think (in my opinion) that he’s failed again. The House that Jack Built is artistic, funny at times, brutally gory (like Von Trier does), but lacking in value or entertainment. I’m FULLY away that Lars Von Trier movies are a taste thing. Not everyone gets his gonzo style of film making, and while I really like some of his films, this one just left a sour taste in my mouth, and I felt it was more of a failed provocation piece than a worthwhile film.

The film centers around a psychopathic serial killer named Jack. We watch him and his kills over the course of 12 years as the artistic maniac creates the perfect murders. He’s on his way to literal hell (quite literally in fact), and followed around with a sort of narrator named Verge (Bruno Ganz), which we kind of get is modeled after Dante’s Virgil. As he travels through the 5 regions of hell, Jack describes his five most memorable murders, each one getting more bizarre and more artistic as he does so. The first one involves picking up a hitch hiker on the side of the road (played by Uma Thurman) who kind of berates and abuses poor Jack, calling him a serial killer wannabe by his looks, but probably too weak to actually BE one. This of course ends badly for her as he bashes her with a tire Jack (literally a meta joke, jack from Jack himself!). This kind of meta humor defines the film as it gets more bizarre and gruesome.

The theme of the film seems to compare and contrast artistry with murder. Literally painting a picture with the taking of a life. In it, Von Trier dares the audience to stare into the abyss with him, watching in horror as Jack’s psychosis creates more and more artistic ways to take said life, and in the most gruesome ways imaginable. Nothing is off limits it seems, and while the visuals are not THAT bad (seriously, most slasher movies show more gore), it’s the uncomfortable way that he films each scene that has the audience squirming in their seats. He explores themes of misandry and misogyny that claims of has plagued his career for the last 20+ years, but at the end of the day it wrings hollow. It’s as if Von Trier has nothing to really SAY here, but instead tries for provocation instead. The entire purpose of the movie seems to be to literally make the audience uncomfortable and to evoke a sense of revulsion from them. To what intent I can’t rightfully say, but it really feels as if Von Trier is angrily flipping off the audience and cackling in glee at their discomfort, for his own amusement.

The final 20 minutes of the film is really intense, and truly artful, as Von Trier creates a masterful array of visual imagery and a stunningly twisted ending, but you have to slow through an hour and 10 minutes of gruesome murders, and Jack acting in as a stand in for Von Trier himself, monologuing about the artistry of murder and painting himself as some sort of heroic artist for doing so. It’s a bit self serving and nauseating to watch, as the entire film seems like the director patting himself on the back in one moment, and then cackling with his finger at the audience as he gleefully delights in their squeamishness.




Rating:

Rated R for strong disturbing violence/sadistic behavior, grisly images, language, and nudity. (Unrated Cut is Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

I couldn’t find any information on the master, but The House That Jack Built was shot using some form of the Arri Alexa mini and then heavily graded to give it a 35mm and 16mm film look to it for many shots. The 2.39:1 framed image is incredibly well done, showing heavily stylized older sequences meant to replicate the 70s and 80s (as well as the intro sections with Jack standing before the van), with simulated grain added to the image. Other shots (like with the mother and her two sons hunting) is stunningly bright and clear, with vivid reds, deep greens and a very neutral and glossy look to it. The parts where Virgil and Jack are in hell show deep shadows, red and orange flickering flames, as well as some almost matte painting looking background as they traverse the depths. There’s some mild banding here and there, but otherwise this is a very detailed and well done (if not heavily stylized) transfer. Both the director's cut and the theatrical cut are virtually identical in look, and both are on their own separate discs as well.









Audio:

Scream Factory gives the obligatory 2.0 DTS-HD MA night listening track to compliment the more robust 5.1 DTS-HD MA track, and of course we’re definitely going with the 5.1 mix. This is a fantastic mix, with great attention to sonic details, as Von Trier spends as much time with the audio as he does with the story. Creepy screeches and horrible yells shatter moments of introspective silences, and the little background noises in the path to hell really makes for an encompassing use of surrounds. The LFE is tight and punchy, but it’s never a hammer hitting bass track, accentuating the score, as well as adding weight to the hunting rifle that Jack wields, or the rumbling of fiery lava that simulates the final circle of hell that Virgil takes the killer to.







Extras:

• THEATRICAL AND DIRECTOR'S CUT OF THE FILM
• Sonning Prize: An Interview with Director Lars Von Trier
• Teaser Trailer
• Theatrical Trailer

Final Score: ​

Can I recommend The House That Jack Built? Not at all. I find it repulsive and not worth my time. Can I recommend PARTS of the film? Most definitely, that ending sequence is incredible, but the rest of the 2+ hours film (and it’s unrated version) is overly gory, underly impressive, and really a self indulgent mess that rivals Nymphomaniac for it’s ineptness at times. The tone deaf film is not something I would ever recommend someone blindly watch UNLESS they were already a Lars Von Trier fan, and this is one of his weaker ones at that. Audio and video are mostly excellent, except for the audio pitch slowdown, and the extras are solid. Still, I’ve thought long and hard about this one, and unless you’re a die hard Lars Von Trier fan, this is probably something I would simply avoid. I desperately wanted to like Lars as a horror artist, but this one failed as entertainment, and seems to exist only to provoke the viewer. Skip It.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Matt Dillon, Riley Keogh, Uma Thurman, Bruno Ganz, Jeremy Davies, Sofie Grabol, Jack McKenzie
Directed by: Lars Von Trier
Written by: Lars Von Trier
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: R / NR
Runtime: 151 minutes (R-rated Theatrical Cut) / 152 minutes (Unrated Cut)
Blu-ray Release Date: February 4th, 2020

Recommendation: Skip It.


​

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will skip it based on your review.