If one is missing some provocation in this year’s cinematic landscape, fear not, as Lars von Trier will premiere a new film next year. His serial killer drama The House That Jack Built completed production earlier this year, and now the first still has arrived.
Starring Matt Dillon, Uma Thurman, Bruno Ganz, Riley Keough, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Ed Speleers, and Sofia Grabol, the film spans 12 years and will be split into “five incidents” (aka the murders) and then the “digressions” in between, as Jack attempts to create the “ultimate artwork” in his vocation.
”I don’t find anything especially interesting about serial killers,” Lars von Trier tells Screen Daily. ”It’s more the women. For some strange reason all the women I have been with have been crazy about serial killers. That might have something to do with me. Also I thought I could fool people to go into the cinema. There are so many books and films and TV-shows about serial killers. But still I picked it up – of course I know I can’t do something drastically different but I had fun writing it.”
In the first still below, one can see Dillon’s character in a meat locker, where we presume he is up to no good.
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT takes place in 1970s USA. We follow the highly intelligent Jack through 5 incidents and are introduced to the murders that define Jack’s development as a serial killer. We experience the story from Jack’s point of view. He views each murder as an artwork in itself, even though his dysfunction gives him problems in the outside world. Despite the fact that the final and inevitable police intervention is drawing ever near (which both provokes and puts pressure on Jack) he is – contrary to all logic – set on taking greater and greater chances.
Along the way we experience Jack’s descriptions of his personal condition, problems and thoughts through a recurring conversation with the unknown Verge – a grotesque mixture of sophistry mixed with an almost childlike self-pity and in-depth explanations of, for Jack, dangerous and difficult manoeuvres.
The House That Jack Built will premiere in 2018 and will be released by IFC Films.