The House That Jack Built Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

The House That Jack Built Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf February 7, 2020

Throughout his career, writer/director Lars von Trier has treasured every chance to upset his audience. He’s an artful filmmaker, but one who enjoys being provocative, taking viewers to dark, strange places where human barbarity can thrive. Sometimes, this makes for unforgettable cinema. “The House That Jack Built” is not one of those golden occasions, with von Trier going inward to craft a tale about a serial killer struggling with his own vision for savagery. “The House That Jack Built” is repellant, but predictably so, taking a torturous 153 minutes to keep hitting the same beats of mutilation and commentary, while von Trier puts this thinly veiled examination of his own career into the hands of star Matt Dillon, who’s not built for the uniquely suffocating screen spaces European cinema is capable of producing.

Jack (Matt Dillon) is locked in confessional mode with afterlife figure Verge (Bruno Ganz), trying to articulate his personal mission to destroy human life with attention to the details of art, architecture, and self-expression. Jack recounts five incidents from his time on Earth, covering 12 years of murder, where he worked to bait and destroy victims, using his comforting looks to lure outsiders in, earning him the nickname, “Mr. Sophistication.” Keeping the newly dead fresh inside an industrial freezer, Jack struggles to find an end game for his barbaric, OCD-laden ways, recounting his early years as a troubled child, which lead to an adulthood void of emotional connection and deadly appetites, all the while consumed with finding his position as a serial killer with an elevated sense of purpose.

The conversation between Jack and Verge offers structure to von Trier, with the pair establishing a purging of details from the murderer, who’s not on trial but seeks to defend his ways, or at least clarify the more ordered areas of his madness. Verge isn’t revealed until the final act of “The House That Jack Built,” with the rest of the movie tracking the titular man’s path of destruction while commenting on his actions, creating analysis, confrontation, and performance to go with major bodily harm. It’s a grandiose idea cut up into “incidents,” using traditional von Trier interest in breaking up the narrative journey into sampling of horrors, with the pop song of choice being David Bowie’s “Fame,” which adds some sonic sugar to the feature and offers Jack his own theme song. In fact, everything in “The House That Jack Built” is reminiscent of other, better von Trier endeavors, finding the normally mischievous helmer playing it relatively safe with intentionally disturbing material.

The incidents capture Jack’s progression as a killer, initially getting used to the idea with a stranded motorist (Uma Thurman) who insists on needling the young man about his appearance and lack of manly motivation when dealing with a flat tire. There’s a widower (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) who welcomes Jack into her home after he identifies himself as a police officer, giving him a first taste of strangulation. Taking the role of a family man, Jack turns a hunting trip with a mother (Sofie Grabol) and her children into shooting practice with human targets. Taking a lover (Riley Keough), Jack attempts to diminish her spirit and target her femininity before dispatching her. And for his grand finale, Jack collects numerous victims, experimenting with Nazi gamesmanship, trying to see if he can pull off a mass murder with a single bullet.

“The House That Jack Built” delights in the vivid particulars of the crimes, lovingly examining how the killer butchers his victims, savoring their fear and confusion to inspire his internalized thesis on death. The picture is graphic, von Trier wouldn’t want it any other way, but it doesn’t always inspire the reaction the helmer is hoping for. Select imagery is nightmarish (Jack turns one woman’s breasts into a wallet, and he works very carefully to murder children during the hunting sequence) but obvious in its intent, catching von Trier poking at the audience in desperate ways, looking for anything, even animal torture, to rile up viewers. To help cover his tracks, the screenplay strives to use the incidents as Jack’s drive to fulfil his destiny as a master architect of death (this level of aspiration is way beyond Dillon’s thespian skills), living up to a potential that’s driving him insane, flashing through inspiration from art of all kinds, including von Trier’s own filmography. The prolonged suffering has a point to Mr. Sophistication, who’s working toward his masterpiece in the freezer of death.

“The House That Jack Built” is presented in two versions: the Director’s Cut (152:33) and the Theatrical Cut (151:01).

The House That Jack Built Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The AVC encoded image (2.39:1 aspect ratio) presentation deals with a particular visual energy from Lars von Trier, who enjoys his darkness and color, along with a lot of handheld cinematography. Detail is preserved throughout the viewing experience, with all the gruesome imagery open for inspection as the titular character batters, blasts, and carves up his victims. Essentials such as facial particulars come through sharply, as does interior decoration, permitting a full examination of living spaces. Exteriors retain depth. Hues are potent, with earth tones for period style blending nicely with displays of art, which feature brighter primaries. Greenery is precise. Fiery circles of Hell glow with red authority. Skintones are natural. Delineation survives despite dealing with stretches of limited lighting. Mild banding is detected.

The House That Jack Built Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA sound mix offering an enveloping listening experience, utilizing surrounds for immersive atmospherics as the story visits interiors and exteriors, and even Hell itself. Room tone is exact, and dialogue exchanges are crisp, delivering conversational balance and more defined narration from Jack and Verge. Scoring cues enjoy clear instrumentation, while soundtrack selections retain rock power, as Bowie brings some thump to the low- end. With so much attention put on sound design, "The House That Jack Built" delivers intended intensity and an artful flurry of elements. However, a subtle change in pitch is found in the Director's Cut, lowering the track ever so slightly, which appears to be an inherent issue. With von Trier's mysterious ways, perhaps the minor difference is even intentional.

The House That Jack Built Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Director's Cut

• "Sonning Prize Interview" (26:46, HD) pairs Lars von Trier with University of Copenhagen Professor, Peter Schepelern. The men discuss various topics concerning the life and times of von Trier, exploring his alcoholism, feelings of isolation, personal philosophy, "The House That Jack Built," creative inspirations, and the potential of virtual reality. Most interesting is a return to Von Trier's Nazi comments at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, with the director providing a full explanation of his motivations and inability to clarify his thinking at the time, blaming the moderator and Twitter for the outrage that followed.

• Announcement (:27, HD) finds von Trier sharing a production start date for "The House That Jack Built."

• Greeting (:27, HD) is a welcome message from von Trier for the 2018 "One Night Only" screenings of "The House That Jack Built," with the helmer admitting the movie takes days to digest, and closes with a "Never Trump" message.

• And a Cannes Teaser (:23, HD) is included.

Theatrical Cut

• A Theatrical Trailer (2:32, HD) is included.

The House That Jack Built Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"The House That Jack Built" takes an extraordinary amount of screen time to explore the killer's development. While von Trier is quick to decorate the endeavor with coded messages, art appreciation, and dialogue between Jack and Verge (sending them through a visualization of Dante's "Inferno"), he's often stuck repeating himself, trying to pull off the sinister attitude and therapeutic buffering of his youth. But now, in his mid-sixties, with "The House That Jack Built," von Trier resembles a needy child lashing out with programmed ugliness because he's not receiving the attention he feels he deserves.