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Controversial, much lauded and horrific to watch, ANTICHRIST is Lars von Trier's showpiece film. It tells the tale of an unhappy marriage that breaks down due to grief, and the extremes that follow. It's a film that plays out as a two-hander for the most part, with Dafoe and Gainsbourg acting it up in a remote woodland cabin and taking out their rage and anger upon each other.

The film's simple storyline allows von Trier to concentrate on the things that interest him most. His intelligent, thoughtful script goes deep into the psyche of his characters, exploring the ways in which therapy can – and in some ways, cannot – help a parent to get over the loss of their child. The first half of the film is packed with foreboding that gives way to visceral horror in the second half.

Everything you've heard about this film's explicit nature is true; nothing much makes me squeamish anymore, but ANTICHRIST did. I can't stand sexual violence in films and von Trier incorporates it to chilling, disturbing effect, made all the more powerful due to its brief nature. In many ways, the second half of this film becomes HOSTEL in the woods, except it's all the more frightening because violence comes from a loved one rather than a stock villain.

Dafoe and Gainsbourg are both very good; they couldn't not be, seeing as what von Trier asks of them. Dafoe plays the more sympathetic role and Gainsbourg's character is a little shrill on occasion, but neither of them disappoint. Von Trier directs in classic art-house style with beautiful shots interspersed with grotesque imagery and true left-of-field interludes.

It's certainly not a film for the faint of heart or an experience I would choose to put myself through again, but I think that ANTICHRIST is a great example of a director following his vision without compromise.

Much as I hate to see personal heroes go down, this was a letdown in every way.

I'm betting that just about everything filmed in slo-mo, black&white & set to a classical tune is likely to seem wonderful. It's such a cheap trick! How can people say that the prologue is wonderful/brilliant etc, when it's a mere legerdemain of the lowest kind? I mean, get together a cute baby, a washing machine and a couple having explicit sex, and you have not a brilliant scene, but a brainless, comfortable attempt at stirring emotion. Bah.

In fact, the entire movie suffers from a lack of creativity: the ominous atmosphere is suggested by heavy fog (I mean fog machines), a fox speaks (everybody burst out laughing, no wonder!), a crow refuses to die despite being hit over the head repeatedly. How much must we suffer for von Trier's shortage of original artistic vision!

As for the rest, a friend explained it had to do with seeing women as intrinsically threatening because of their sexual drive. I recommend Odishon for that - more intelligent, less cheap.

This movie drained me...

Without a doubt the most unpleasant and despairing movie I've ever watched. It's not just the graphic imagery that got to me, but the overall tone of the movie was incredibly dreadful and you could almost feel a presence of some sort of "evil".

This is a hard movie to review. It crosses all barriers when it comes to movie making...ALL. It makes you question yourself about what art is and if there's anything as going "too far"?

But don't dismiss this. It's certainly much more than just being graphic for the sake of it. First off, the cinematography is absolutely flawless. The opening scene had me in absolute awe. Beautiful... And my deepest respect to Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsburg. I could only imagine how much this would drain the actors both mentally and physically. They are amazing and deserve Oscars.

I have to mention the violence too, since it's a critical aspect. This isn't "torture porn" of any kind. It's natural (it's looks almost too realistic), physical sexual violence. That's why it works so effective on the audience. You can almost feel their pain. Never before have I watched a movie where I felt the urge to look away. You would think that, in the end, all this violence and self molestation is just a shock tactic, but I assure you it's not. There is actually a plot and a sensible progression of the movie. I of course won't say too much. People need to see it.

I can understand why some people wouldn't like it, and that's okay. This is most definitely not for everyone.

It may not be a movie that made me feel good, but it made feel something and had an effect on me. It's beautiful, sad, poetic, horrific and in the end, oddly uplifting. A genre masterpiece.

A must see.

10/10.

An eerie yet gorgeous tapestry of lingering close-ups; parallels, cuts and slow-motion photography, Lars Von Trier's Antichrist is a gruelling tale of mythical grandeur: a bizarre yet beautiful film chock full of sadism and shagging, Satanic dogma and similes. Most of which, I don't understand. So you'll be pleased to know that I have no intention of harping on about the director's bent meditation on gender, nature, genocide, motherhood, misogyny and astronomy. I find all that stuff interesting, don't get me wrong, but when things get Freudian I'm way out of my league. Therefore, I'll stick to what I know.

Albeit seething with emotion, Antichrist refuses to adhere to some of the general "rules" of the classical Hollywood narrative, meaning it lacks clarity, unity and closure. For example, there're only two characters, both of which remain nameless and have indefinite; pasts, motives and are somewhat difficult to identify with. The film rejects conventional morality. It is a difficult and uncomfortable experience that'll unnerve even the most robust of film fans. So if you like your films light, clear and conservative, stay away. If, however, you're a fan of, say, Nicholas Roeg's Don't Look Now, director David Lynch or you just dig a bit of alternative cinema, then brace yourself for a hugely demanding tableau that film critic Anita Singh of the Sunday Telegraph dubbed "the most shocking film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival." Willem Dafoe plays "he", a therapist and husband to "she" (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the female half of the cast whose line of work we never really learn. After a quite miraculous opening montage that juxtaposes the couple making love with the accidental death of their child, the embedded tale follows the pair as they flee to "Eden", their isolated cabin in the woods, where "he" attempts to aid a severely grief stricken "she" through her bereavement.

Book-ended by a masterfully conceived prologue and epilogue and split into four focal chapters entitled "Grief", "Pain", "Despair" and "The Three Beggars" (don't ask), the film takes on a ghostlike tone from the outset as the boundaries between the real and surreal become blurred. Alas, things get weird, edgy and very, very nasty. The sheer mass and rate of dense motifs and metaphors at hand regarding sex, Freud, the devil and the soul is a little overwhelming. Not to mention the force and intensity of both Dafoe and Gainsbourg's turns in addition to the film's strong, emotional undercurrent.

In spite of large and sustained periods of quite brilliant film-making, Antichrist contains some of the most violent and deplorable images ever committed to celluloid. For the ladies there's self mutilation. For the gents there's…I, I, I can't even say it. Put it this way, it ain't good lads…Anyway, add to the unthinkable gore a whole host of outlandish set-ups, half a dozen scenes of a sexual nature and one or two jolts in tone and you'll be scared silly. Remember- sometimes in cinema, you fear what you don't understand, especially when the camera is an unflinching eye inside the head of a disturbed, Danish poet. Lars Von Trier is an excellent filmmaker, but even his biggest fans will find it hard to swallow this, never mind stomach it.

Dedicated to the memory of legendary soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, Antichrist is truly as haunting, delicate and poetic a film as you're ever bound to see. Though shrouded in scenes of unspeakable cruelty, the film eludes to the work of Tarkovsky in a big way: Von Trier's warped Adam and Eve parable is a moody, metaphysical affair cloaked in hypnotic, dreamlike imagery that calls to mind the likes of Mirror, Solaris and the brilliant Stalker. The trancelike photography; sound, score, and editing demonstrate a predilection for atmospheric, art-theatre sensibility. Tarkovsky would have loved it. This, after all, is a film that simply has to be seen to be believed. Not necessarily for its aesthetic grandeur, gore or technique, but for its harrowing portrayal of a soul in torment.

What's it all about? Who cares?! Antichrist is an unusual, atmospheric horror film that's guaranteed to provoke. The performances are honest and strong, the aesthetics are bold, the direction is brilliant and the outcome is something that is ultimately hard to come by these days: authentic film-making.

Jack Harding

I have never had such a love/hate relationship with a director like I have with Lars von Trier. His films are beautiful, yet they dare you to loathe them. They are as strenuous to watch as they would be horrific to live out. Antichrist is no different.

The direction and cinematography are amazing, yet Antichrist is so difficult to get through. The acting is absolutely breathtaking; Willem Dafoe is one of the greatest actors of all time, and Charlotte Gainsbourg always works well with Lars von Trier's style. With the acts of sexual violence and blatant misogyny, Antichrist leaves a poor taste in the mouths of the audience.

The rest contains some minor spoilers. The "nature is Satan's church" line was an odd take on the Mother Nature archetype. I'm all for original ideas, but the implications of this are quite problematic. At another point, Gainsbourg says that "a crying woman is a scheming woman." If you don't get the picture by now, women are certainly vilified in Antichrist. While there are some gross lines, there are other lines that I actually like. For example, "chaos reins" was entirely haunting and probably one of my favorite movie quotes.

One odd problem I have noticed with Lars von Trier's movies, apart from being hard to watch, is that they're edited in weird ways. I don't like the editing during some scenes. Fortunately, nothing in Antichrist was as poorly edited as the wedding dinner scene from Melancholia.

All things said, while Antichrist is technically well-made in most aspects, I cannot support the message. It hinders my enjoyment of the film by a substantial margin.

Rating: D+

The movie begins in slow motion ... and more than half the movie after that, will feel the same way, even if it's not. In other words, the first half of the movie, does take it's time. Slow moving would be an understatement of the biggest kind. That shouldn't surprise you then ... what surprised me though, was the fact, how explicit the movie was!

Just a heads up on that too then. While I felt the first part of the movie was a bit dragging, in the end it gets insane (pun intended). Not every movie can say, that it is irritating and leave you with mixed feelings. And even those who do that, are not necessarily good movies. Rating this movie (and others similar to the feeling they leave you) is pretty hard. Just prepare yourself for something completely different and you will get something out of the movie ...

This movie is violent and very sexually graphic, bordering at times on artistic but hardcore pornography; but it isn't lurid for the sole purpose of scandal. "Gory" appropriately describes some sections of this film but the word by no means encapsulates it.

If one is willing to stomach the periodic revulsion of watching this movie from beginning to end with a thoughtful and mature perspective they will find that it is full of symbolism, foreshadowing, and the kind of characterization that brings great success to novels. Few movies, in fact, possess the level of depth that Antichrist does. The movie isn't packed with moral insight but that doesn't preclude it from being intellectually engaging and, as a consequence, genuinely entertaining. One will also realize that the violent and sexual content is never pure excess. The gory scenes, though sickening, are always important in some way to the main themes of the movie.

At several points during the course of this film I couldn't help but rewind it to watch a scene again, discuss it in greater depth with my friends, attempt to extricate the finer details that are present in abundance both at the surface and underneath.

To anybody that tries to berate this movie as the deranged product of excessively liberal foreigners I must point you to movies like Saw, which drew American crowds young and old for numerous sequels that were basically just series' of elaborate and gruesome torture scenes, sometimes clever but never much more than that.

There is more to Antichrist than meets the eye, and I highly recommend it to anybody looking for a horror/suspense film that engages more than just the reptilian parts of the brain.

First I have to make a comment to cynibun from United States who wrote "And if you look at the previous reviewers they are from Denmark, where the director is from. Perhaps you have to be Danish to appreciate the horrific torture pornography, who knows??... Americans have more sense thankfully, and do not call everything art simply because the director is foreign." I have no idea why it should matter where the other reviewers are from. That has nothing to do with "Antichrist" as a film. Some like it and some don't, no matter what country they are from. If I don't like an American film I don't go out and bash on reviewers from America and then state that Danes have more sense - what's that all about? Sense of what? Personally I don't think it makes much sense making movies like "American Pie" or "Hannah Montana", but hey, they produce the films anyway - maybe because they have more sense. Hannah Montana makes a LOT of sense... And you don't have to come from Denmark to like "Antichrist" (though it is a very constructive statement), I'm guessing there is one or two people from Russia or Poland who likes the film also...

Back to Lars Von Trier and "Antichrist". First of all - I don't know why everybody keeps saying this film is a gore fest. "Uhhh it's so brutal, violent and extremely gory". What? Okay, there's more blood than in "Hannah Montana" but if "Antichrist" is a sick and gory film, I don't know what you would call films like "Ichi The Killer", Naked Blood", "Inside" and "Audition"? There is more blood/gore in "Se7en" than in "Antichrist" (or maybe the same amount), so I don't know what all the fuzz is about... Anyway... I loved the film!!! When I left the theater I didn't know quite what to think, but it grows and becomes better and better. It's a fantastic work of art, the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle is amazing and the whole feel of the film is both beautiful and scary at the same time. Willem Dafoe is at his best in this one.

I guess you have to have an open mind when watching this. The film does not give any answers and is rich on symbolism - guess one could call it "experimental horror-drama". Lars Von Trier is back in his hypnotic visual style and mindfuc*ing storytelling, and this is where he is best! Not a film for the mainstream audiences, but I recommend it if you have an open mind and want something new and different, and have (almost) as much sense as Americans.

Lars Von Trier is a director who's always been going his own ways, and this can definitely be seen in this movie. Antichrist is a movie that doesn't hold anything back when it comes to gore, and the stuff that you see in the film won't leave your mind the next couple of days. But the movie itself is much more than that... The movie is beautifully shot, the story and setting extremely uncomfortable and the acting is fantastic. The movie is sometime painful to watch, not in a "Saw" or "Hostel" kind of way, but when you leave the theater you feel genuinely uncomfortable, and that is one of the reasons why i liked this movie. It's a movie like nothing i've experienced and I'm glad that we have directors like Lars Von Trier that dares to make a film like this. It's nothing like the mainstream movies that are being made nowadays, and it makes your mind race when you leave the theater, something very few movies does. You aren't served with facts, as with any other movies, but are left to interpret and think for yourself. It's a bizarre movie and not one for the faint of heart, but if you dare to be provoked and see a movie like nothing you've ever seen, then go see Antichrist.

Ok so that happened. I really liked the cinematography in this movie. There truly is some breathtaking moments. Then there is the end........ I thought I have seen it all. Nope. Watch at own risk you will not be the same person after watching.