A film that Lars made

Lars Von Trier has made some good movies.  Not exactly "wholesome" or "holy" films --- they're not Hallmark movies, I certainly can't imagine someone confusing one of his movies for a film distributed by PureFlix --- but despite his quirks and my ultimate inability to connect deeply with any of them enough to endure their entire running time, I can't say anything unilaterally bad about MELANCHOLIA (2011) or...damn, whatever that movie was called that had Emily Watson in it...Ok, IMDB here I come...BREAKING THE WAVES (1996).  Some of his other movies might have more of a shady-ness to them...I haven't bothered watching (trying to watch) most of them.  ANTICHRIST (2009) was interesting, not enough so that I felt the need to watch the entire thing, but what I saw of it did have a palatable look and feel, and a mood that I found morbidly comforting (it opens with a child walking out of a window and subsequently the mother's grief over it)

But then there's 2018's THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, which attempts to present a slasher film as art, by ruminating on the "nature" of art --- as if to say that all art is by nature an assault on one's senses.
Films have always been scary, some of them.  1957's WAIT UNTIL DARK was one of AFI's Top 100 pulse pounding films (the list had a more elongated title, don't remember what exactly it was; I saw a TV special about it on what at the time was referred to as "expanded basic" cable in Southeast Missouri via Charter Cable Co.).  I still haven't seen it, perhaps because I'm trying to cherish movies made in the modern day rather than digging in the past.  I know most movies from the 40s and 50s just don't appeal to me.  Most movies today don't appeal to me and filmmakers today have a much higher expectation when it comes to eliciting empathy from an audience.  Much more so with me because of my limited life experiences, even on a vicarious level.  Movies of any time frame are unlikely to connect with me mentally OR emotionally, but especially movies made before the 1980's.  There's a good chunk of movies from the 1970's I can get behind, weather by choice or by original sin, and there's almost as many from the late '60's I can say the same about.  But there's very very few I've managed to enjoy that were made in the '50s and prior that I've managed to enjoy on any level.  1957's 12 ANGRY MEN is an astonishing example of a movie that was so damn awesome, a late '90's remake actually pales in comparison.  The remake was good, but I can't say it did anything to improve upon or augment the original.  1999's THE HAUNTING was a worthwhile remake, despite what others have said.  The 1963 original had its strengths but was mostly pretty boring.  That being said, the 1999 remake was probably not worth what likely cost $100 million to make.  I saw it in theaters and was more able to enjoy it because of that (this was before theaters felt the need to crank everything to ear shattering level, such as was the case with 2011's INCEPTION which I found to be an absolute mess of a film, partly because the bass level was turned way up so that resin from the dialogue was more audible than the actual words being spoken....wtfFFFF!!!  I stil think every detail of the movie was way too symmetrical for a film that takes place largely in someone's subconcisous even though the story was probably the most "stream of consciousness" thing about the movie, considering it was kinda all over the place, with plot devices thrown in every which way and none of them having any real consequence or feeling of urgency or anything that caused any feeling at all really...some people it seems can feel bouts of fellowship and empathy on cue.......I know going in that it's a fucking movie with fake people programmed with what to say and do.  If I can be distracted from that, then the filmmaker's have succeeded.  Most of the time that is not the case  Peter Jackson's unruly early title MEET THE FEEBLES is an example of this kind of failure.  He truly did improve by the time HEAVENLY CREATURES was released.  Either that or I was too pre-engulfed in the subject matter...not sure; it's been some time since I've seen it and I was in kind of a transition state regarding my tastes in movies.  MEET JOE BLACK struck me as an amazing film when I first saw it.  I  saw it again around this time and just about coughed up my recent food intake).
Anyway....
My point originally was that movies do not need to be barbaric and disgusting.  Yes, there are movies that are that way and some of them are rather two faced in their depiction of violence.  Martin Scorsese's films often seem simultaneously defending the value of life while at the same time demonstrating a morbid attraction to death and destruction.  I don't think those movies need to be censored as they deal with subject matter that children (pre adolescents) don't need to be concerning themselves with on an extended level to begin with, and in some cases don't need to be concerning themselves with at all.  The mafia is mostly deactivated, so unless your neighborhood is in the grips of a mafia, the subject matter in GOODFELLAS and MEAN STREETS means nothing to an 11 year old.  Maybe a 14 year old might be introspective and caring enough to want to contemplate the nature of social dynamics and the manipulations and potential consequences and dangers, etc....... but most often that is not the case.  I saw GOODFELLAS when I was 19 or so and was bored to death by it.  I tried watching it again and was a little more able to enjoy it.  I was still kind of confused why the filmmaker felt the need to make a movie with a sole message: "THE MAFIA IS BAD"  Ooh...glad we spent 2.5 hours clearing that up.  Thanks?  Then I saw it again a few years later, and was then more thoroughly able to enjoy it for what it was.  Especially knowing how movies like THE GODFATHER gave people a somewhat favorable impression of the mafia and that the mafia was still very active up until and maybe a little after the time GOODFELLAS was released in theaters in 1990.
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT might not be as grotesque as it sounds.  But reading the marketing for it, it just sounds rather unnecessary.  There are films that are downright obscene with no reason at all to exist except to challenge obscenity laws.  LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT is one of them.  BEYOND THE DARKNESS (1979) is another.  Thankfully many of these movies are virtually unheard of by 99% of people in the world.  If that were not the case, I think people would be taking a greater stand against them.
Mankind's fascination and attraction to violence has been a topic of conversation for far longer than Lars von Trier has been around.  Nobody needs THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.  It's a shocker, probably, I would assume.  Nothing inherently wrong with that.  But if it's as disturbing as I get the impression it is, does it really need to exist? 
This is the reality of the matter: Kids shouldn't get into my DVD collection.  If I owned every movie I highly value on DVD, I would at some point need to keep it locked.  HOWEVER, if the locks were bypassed or I forgot to lock it, then what would I say to my nephews if they saw a movie in my DVD collection?  What would they say if they saw MYSTERIOUS SKIN or HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER?  Or BASKET CASE?  I know what I would say, roughly, in response to those questions.  "What kind of a person are you for owning that movie?"  Heck, I've known adults who would ask me that.  My nephews at this point are too young to consider the concept of dshonesty and hypocrisy.  But they will be and I will need to have an answer for them just in case.  Maybe my answers won't be good enough for God...but...well, maybe my answers won't make sense to them either, but I'll cross that bridge when the time comes.  If they end up scared to their core and nothing else, my sister and her husband will probably have words of comfort for them.  Maybe I'll be invited to comfort them and I will have things to say although they might not be relevant or come across as comforting.  Probably leave that to them.  Child psychology is totally not my area of expertise.  I thought adult psychology was f***ed up.  Seeing my 2 year old nephew grow up just demonstrates to me that intellect is a gift from God, fashioned by our experiences and influences.  We are all somewhat stupid when we enter this Earth.  We are born absolutely helpless.  Our ability to reason is extremely limited, our knowledge is even more limited, our understanding of language despite constantly being exposed to it takes years to develop, and what's worse, we have to have help developing a sturdy walking ability.
My initial point in writing this may be flawed given I haven't plopped down $6 to see the newest monstrosity that Lars von Trier came up with.  But if reading THE BIBLE is not enough to demonstrate the relationship between mankind of violence, then why do you need to watch THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT?  That movie is getting way too much attention from film goers and I just have to wonder what the f*** is going through people's heads.  But like it always is, God is watching us and waiting for many of us to choose Him and The Way that he provided for us to connect with Him, but people largely would believe that NOTHING is at the end of one's individual life rather than the definition of reality minus God.