The House That Jack Built

20182 hours 32 minsREnglish, German, Italian

HorroRated pick

HorroRated verdict

Legendary

2010sSerial KillerPremonitionPsychologicalSurvival Horror

Directed by: Lars von Trier
Written by: Lars von Trier
Produced by: Louise Vesth, Jonas Bagger, Peter Aalbæk Jensen, Maj-Britt Paulmann, Marianne Slot, Sascha Verhey, Lizette Jonjic, Piv Bernth, Madeleine Ekman, Tomas Eskilsson, Tine Grew Pfeiffer, Bettina Brokemper, Thomas Gammeltoft, Charlotte Pedersen, Leonid Ogaryov, Lasse Mucha Andersen, Ida Harder, Lina Wichmann, Kristina Prilukova

Collections

Psychological Serial Killer True Crime Slow Burn Survival Horror

Why it’s HorroRated

The House That Jack Built is Lars von Trier making a film about what it means to watch a film about what he's making. It's formally rigorous, disturbing, and in conversation with the history of horror and art cinema simultaneously. Matt Dillon's Jack is a fully realized character whose logic the film presents without endorsing. An essential and difficult film.

Synopsis

Lars von Trier places the audience in the position of following Jack's logic and his aesthetic justifications. An austere, difficult film that takes the serial killer genre's implicit questions about spectatorship and makes them explicit and uncomfortable. Matt Dillon's Jack is a fully realized character whose logic the film presents without endorsing.