Antichrist

A couple loses their infant son when he falls out a window while they have sex. Grief-stricken, the mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is overwhelmed with panic attacks. Her husband (Willem Dafoe), a therapist, takes her to their cabin in the woods to try to treat her. Only the woods are called “Eden,” and they’re filled with strange noises and sounds, and pretty soon, distorted lenses reveal distorted events. Animals run about with half-born offspring dangling out of their genitals; holes in the ground threaten to swallow up all meaning; and a grindstone becomes a gruesome prison. Weirdly, the film goes for a long time with no violence—but an overwhelming sense that something horrible is going to happen. It does in the final reel, and it’s some of the most over-the-top violence ever to make it to the art-house circuit, but at least director Lars von Trier didn’t just dish it out like gory candy. Antichrist is probably the most thoughtful horror film I’ve seen in years, and if it had any influence, it could reshape the genre and bring it back to its Hitchcockian roots without completely giving up the gross-out elements that have taken over horror movies in recent years. Of course, it won’t have any influence on the genre, so don’t worry about it.