Lars Von Trier’s 'House That Jack Built' Reactions: Disgust, Loathing & Walkouts

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Another day, another Lars Von Trier movie premiering at the Cannes Film Festival to outrage and soon to be infamy. A Lars Von Trier movie about a serial killer who mutilates women? What could possibly go wrong? The ledes are endless and the controversy perhaps not much of a surprise. Returning to Cannes after a seven-year lifelong ban was undone, the Danish provocateur premiered his latest “The House That Jack Built” tonight on the Croisette, and it seems audiences are disgusted to the point that the grotesquely violent movie provoked mass walkouts.

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“I’ve never seen anything like this at a film festival,” Variety writer Ramin Setoodeh wrote on Twitter today. “More than 100 people have walked out of Lars von Trier’s ‘The House That Jack Built,’ which depicts the mutilation of women and children. ‘It’s disgusting,’ one woman said on her way out.”

“Remember, Cannes UNDID a lifetime ban for this movie….” Matt Bellomi of the Hollywood Reporter wrote.

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“The House That Jack Built,” which debuted its trailer this morning, stars Matt Dillon as a serial killer who “views each murder as an artwork in itself, even though his dysfunction gives him problems in the outside world.”

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Despite all the revulsion towards the film in many corners, “The House That Jack Built” still reportedly received a standing ovation. The film comes on the heels of sexual harassment charges that Bjork leveled at Trier during the heat of the #MeToo moment earlier this year, describing him misogynist and bully as well during the making of the Palmes d’Or-winning “Dancer In The Dark.” Following these allegations, Trier’s production company Zentropa was accused of systematic degradation and sexual harassment. Maybe not the best environment in which to work.

Trier was given a lifetime ban from Cannes in 2011 for comments that sympathized with Nazis during the press conference of “Melancholia.” Cannes President Thierry Fremaux has since said Trier was a “victim” of his own “bad jokes.” “The House That Jack Built” was a late addition to Cannes and it played out of competition, but rumors swirled beforehand that many Cannes organizers didn’t want the film playing at the festival at all, but that Fremaux was a huge advocate of lifting the filmmaker’s ban. And it seems he won.

IFC Films will release “The House That Jack Built,” later this year, but if the #MeToo lax French and European audiences reacted this strongly to Trier’s latest, I can’t imagine how American viewers are going to take to it. Expect a roasting. Reactions below and our own Cannes review soon.