Customer Reviews

Movie - Antichrist

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This is quite possibly the most disturbing film I've ever sat through. While Antichrist doesn't show absolutely everything and it's usually rather brief when it comes to showing disturbing material, it shows enough to make your stomach drop.

Everything leading to the last half of the film is done incredibly well. The cinematography is rather incredible, especially while they're in Eden. Everything is so lush and green while certain shots alone say more than the characters in the film ever could. The score is haunting and successfully establishes putting its viewers on edge. The entire film is spent with this married couple and their performances are top notch. It's just those last thirty to forty five minutes take such an abrupt turn. Nothing can really prepare you for how unrelenting and horrifying the finale is. The events that unfold in this film will haunt you and stick with you for an incredibly long time.

The less you know about Antichrist, the more surprising that first viewing will be. That's the main reason this review is so vague. Don't read up on it and don't watch anything other than the trailer before seeing the film. Just be warned, the film shows enough for a gutwrenching reaction. Antichrist's strongest asset is the atmosphere it builds throughout the film. The air just seems to be constantly thick with the fact that something terrible is going to happen at any moment. While the film is disturbing, shocking, and was able to make me feel things most horror films aren't capable of, I wouldn't say the film was enjoyable. The film takes its toll on you and I don't think it's a film I'd really enjoy sitting through again.

Powerful film. Brilliant performances. Very depressing but strangely arousing as well. Fantastic ending. Not a good first date movie but well worth your time.

The movie affected me so much that I went to sleep and woke up questioning it. The acting was extraordinarily precise and the setting was haunting but there were several things that i could not resolve in my mind. First,
what did Nic's deformity of the feet mean, was it just symbolism of imperfection that translated into the ultimate
insanity of the mother? Why did the mother put the shoes on backwards, was that the first sign of her break with
reality. I watched the movie twice, can't do it again for a while. Question 2: what was the reason for the use
of gynocide and what did that illustrate, nature was satan and it was human nature that was evil. It shook me to my
core. I love both actors and admire their performances though I don't think I can watch it again. At the end after
he escaped what was the reason for all the women coming up the hill. Were these the dead that had been liberated from the past and if so why were they free and what did the wife's death mean to those women? Was Eden hell, was he the evil or was the wife the evil? You too will have some questions, no doubt.I am a therapist and I don't recommend this for the squeamish. This is not classified "Horror" but it is the worst kind of horror, something we can all relate to on some level or some part. The bottom line is
that this was a couple caught in a tragic event, a mother in deep grief and guilt for allowing Nic's death to happen
and a loving but arrogant husband who thought he could save her sanity by isolating her and putting her thru a
series of psychological exercises, challenging her misperceptions which ultimately turned her anger and guilt
toward him. Was this arrogant act another demonstration of female abuse. I have read some of the comments but no
one addresses the reason for his survival and her demise. If anyone has any ideas about eh women going to the cabin at the end and the husband's act of murder of his wife, for compassion of her suffering, hopelessness of her recovery or punishment of her rage directed toward him. If you need happy endings, forget it, I will be looking at
this from so many perspectives and asking questions for the next few years that maybe that is the true values of this form of art.

To be completely honest, I didn't really understand it in full. It's definitely disturbing and gruesome, and was interesting enough for me to watch it in full, but as it continued, it began to make less and less sense. When it was over, there were more questions than answers in my mind. Would not watch again, but was good enough for one watch.

I don't know what to say other than this movie was in the Netf**x horror section & I watched it. I was totally pinned to my couch with the blanket to my chin. This movie is disturbingly awesome. I have recommended this movie to people who have judged me after due to it's level of twistedness (silly, I didn't write it & I warned them first).
I would recommend this movie to anyone who loves horror/twisted movies. Really well filmed. Good acting.

This film isn't very nice at all really. It's disturbing, emotionally exhausting and quite horrifying. I had issues watching it a second time, and need a while before trying again for a third watch. That being said, it is still a brilliant piece of film. It looks stunning and carries a lot of power, more power than almost any other film I've seen. The acting is superb considering the material and is very convincing, which adds greatly to how powerful this film is. I simply stumbled on it on Netflix one night, watched it, was drained and blown away, and then I purchased it. I knew nothing about the film nor what to expect, which certainly increased the impact on me, if you watch it, know as little as possible other than it isn't a nice movie. It will bother you, it will make you question many things and answer nothing. But that is how powerful film works, it makes you ask questions, and doesn't answer any. Absolutely worth watching, more than once, as hard as that may be. As well as owning, whenever my friends/family as about it, I simply make them watch it and let them judge for themeselves. Many here think it is prentious and vulgar. Of course it is, but it has more depth than most rubbish being made today does. So give it a chance and watch with an open mind.

This film is stylized beautifully. It is dramatic and sexy in all the right places. This is one movie you must have just for the simple fact that it is one of those movies that has something that others do not. Like BROWN BUNNY or KEN PARK. If you enjoyed those films, this one is for you!!! I really cannot ruin the movie by telling you about the 2 unbelievable scenes included in it........but trust me...if you have to buy one movie for the rest of your life or are looking for that one item to take with you on the island if you could only take one thing............this is it. Not just a movie, but it will actually change you as a person. You will never see films the same again because once you purchase a film from this genre, movies that you can readily buy at your local wally world will just not satisfy you anymore.

Approaching Lars von Trier's works supposes something out-of-this-world already - and his early movies did sustain such opinion perfectly (The Idiots).

However, this work is much ado about nothing as an extra-orbital price on DVD swept out from shops is rather a royalty of the past achievements than reflecting a sense of this movie if any at all could be digged from an under tree root natural cave a character sought refuge in to struggle with something demonic, not visible in the darkness.

In few words, psychotic nymphomaniac and a schizophrenic sex-machine compliment each other running around undressed down the belly mostly and copulating to calm mutually.

As their toddler had tragically gone, a couple moves into woods to heal from a lose but ends catastrophically.

Well, if there were some either allegories with scripture's stories or comparison with scripture's characters, such a notion is so subtly hidden that could hardly be digged out by a viewer ordinary.

Also pornography is less explicit than in 9 songs, a movie is in general much better than, for instance, Trouble Every Day,anyway.

This is a new decade in a new century and every critic should now be obliged to tell us where they came from before expecting anyone to respect what they saw. I'm in my late 20s. I came of age in the late 90s craving everything I was denied in the 1980s, namely art (by television's standards) and horror (by my parents'). When the two are mixed together, our mentors and our monsters, we should know better than to sit down with a sword, ready to slash `sick,' stab `pretentious,' or surrender to `genius.'
Unfortunately that is what critiques have done to us. We can't even `take it as it is' without constantly fumbling with the hilt of whatever that cliché is supposed to mean.

Antichrist, for the first time in years, pulled my head out of my ass. I forgot to judge it, to anticipate something that would impress or disappoint me. I caught it in the theatre and it grabbed all my film buff's experience and held it above me out of reach. The movie was arty and shocking and made me remember that such a combo was a reason to be alive rather than compensation for being deprived, or desensitized.

The film has two levels: psychological and religious.
To start from psychological level film is extremely symbolic. You hardly could find objects in the plot, that wouldn't be symbols. Forgive me for some "personal" view: she (femininity), he (masculinity), child (with Nick -name - deep self), forest, Eden (unconscious), fox cave (very deep place of unconscious), fox, hind, raven, bridge in the forest etc, etc - better see vocabulary of symbols.
The film would be dull if it would be only psychological illustration of unconscious and its impact on human soul. But the very important suggestion of Lars von Trier is about the roots of evil, "church of Satan". Does it lay in unconscious? Does femininity is the part of human personality, which is the most exposed to Satan (evil). Eve is not woman who brings sin into the World, it is femininity, which resides both in men and women. This Goethe's praised femininity must be treated carefully, especially when it closely connected to unconscious. Sexuality in this case could be very dangerous collaborator with unconscious. It is archetypical feeling that feminine sexuality brings evil (some tribes in Africa cut off women genitals when they are still virgins to escape dangerous consequences of sexual behavior). At the end of the film She wants to imprison her "masculinity" and some women do the same thing with real men leading to fatal relationships.... Well, maybe unconscious is really the gates through which Antichrist is approaching us... These are some few thoughts on the film and please excuse me for my poor English.
P.S. Cinematographically film is worth to be dedicated to A. Tarkovsky.