Is The House That Jack Built be worth your time?

The House That Jack Built is an horrifying, sadistic dive into a psychotic internal monologue. Danish Director Lars Von Trier puts considerable effort into stimulating discomfort at key moments throughout the film.

The film is a 155-minute portrait of a serial killer that spends the running time in the confines of his disturbed mind. With impeccable filmmaking that teeters across moral barriers, it’s also brilliant.

The film proves to be graphic and violent and includes a few brutal death scenes involving women and children. Taken from the perspective of the man perpetuating the crimes, its art transcends its political palatability.

1. Quick Review

The film opens in pitch darkness. Jack and an unidentified man are conversing in a way that indicates Jack is being led to some sort of afterlife and reflecting on his existence.

Almost proudly, he tells his companion about the murders he has committed. The storyline illuminates five randomly chosen incidents that he talks about. While some have single victims, others multiple. He takes viewers on a disturbing journey as he boasts.

2. Info

3. Is It Worth Your Time?

The House That Jack Built introduces viewers to a litany of violent images: stranglings, stabbings, bludgeonings, post-mortem taxidermy, and even amputated human appendages repurposed as wallets. As someone triggered by blood and gore, this wasn’t a particularly fun watch.

The film itself is highly intelligent, more than a touch sociopathic and unbelievably narcissistic. It’s prone to long-winded rants and fits of rage. Although it’s sloppy at times, it has a disturbing tendency to compare murder to art.

The House That Jack Built | Official Trailer | Curzon

The film brings back memories on Michael Haneke’s hair-raising Funny Games (1997) with its main character’s obsessive-compulsive disorder and its inherent misogyny. Von Trier points out the structures of society (dehumanizing and otherwise), as seen in Paulo Pasolini’s Salò (1976).  

The movie spends little time explaining the character’s upbringing that led him to such a depraved place. Instead, it unfolds across a series of incidents so horrible they demand condemnation, while contextualizing them with an unusual density of ideas.

The House That Jack Built could easily devolve into a bloated film if it lacked a dynamic performance at its center. However, with its own uniquely eerie rhythm, this film proves to be one that you can’t forget.

I. Plot

The House That Jack Built opens with Jack (played by Matt Dillion) speaking to an unseen man named Verge (played by Bruno Ganz). Jack boasts of his achievements, and describes five randomly chosen incidents over a 12-year period. All of which involve gruesome murders.

The first incident sets the scene in the where Jack meets a loquacious woman (played by Uma Thurman) who mocks the possibility that he might be a murderer. The bloody end she sees establishes that Dillon is a lunatic, albeit with charisma.

He also has an OCD for leaving no trace of blood in the crime scene. He boasts about choking a woman, then returning to her house at his own peril to ensure it’s immaculate condition even after the cops arrive.

Perhaps the two biggest shockers are these: the first when he murders two children and forces their mother to feed them pie as they die. The other starts off as a casual date with Jacquelin (played by Riley Keough) and ends with a breast removal.

II. Music And Visuals

The music director of this film is Victor Reyes. He is a Spanish film score composer best known for his work in Buried (2010), Grand Piano (2013) and The Night Manager (2016).

Reyes has previously won two Primetime Emmy Awards (The Night Manager), a Cinema Writers Circle Award (En la ciudad sin limites) and an International Film Music Critics Award (Grand Piano).

The soundtrack is quite unusual. Its songs include Partita No. 2 by Bach, Fame by David Bowie, John Lennon and Carlos Alomar, The Four Seasons by Vivaldi, and Tristan und Isolde by Wagner.

Visually, the film is horrifying. The macabre murders are not made much better with its almost-boastful narration. The cold-blooded way in which women are killed, and the general undertone of romanticizing murder is appalling. The comparison of murder to art does not make it much better, either.

4. Grade

5. Final Thoughts

Jack is portrayed as a character with Trump-like vocal tics when delivering his monologue. The metaphor doesn’t need further explanation, but Jack moans about the white man being the bad guy as he stabs a woman all the same.

The film starts with a woman being bashed in the face with a tire-jack, and ends, quite literally, in hell. The in-between is the hard part to endure, and by the time you do, you’ll probably wish you hadn’t.