The House That Jack Built
IFC Films | Release Date: December 14, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
14
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film ThreatLorry KiktaFeb 8, 2019
Some people, including a couple of people I watched the film with, may see The House That Jack Built as pretentious nonsense. Others will see it as the glorification of violence. I see it for what it was intended to be, a work of complicated, violent, hilarious art. Read full review
100
ConsequenceMichael RoffmanNov 29, 2018
The House That Jack Built is an audacious and divisive film, sure, but only because of the context surrounding the film. The gore! The violence! The subject material! Oh my! At its core, though, von Trier has actually assembled his most accessible work to date. Read full review
100
Slant MagazineSam C. MacMay 16, 2018
The film becomes an even broader consideration of individual fascinations and follies, of ways of responding to art without the boundaries of morality and reason. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnMay 16, 2018
The House That Jack Built is an often-horrifying, sadistic dive into a psychotic internal monologue, with intellectual detours about the nature of art in the world today, and puts considerable effort into stimulating discomfort at key moments. If you meet the work on those terms, or at least accept the challenge of wrestling with impeccable filmmaking that dances across moral barriers, it’s also possibly brilliant. Read full review
83
The Film StageGiovanni Marchini CamiaMay 16, 2018
Whether there’s any worth to be found in The House That Jack Built will depend on the viewer’s interest in delving deep into von Trier’s tortured psyche. It’s unlikely anyone will empathize with him and it’s certain many will find the film execrable, but those willing to indulge his excess are offered a wealth of fascinating material. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghDec 18, 2018
The House That Jack Built is more than just an epic piece of cinematic trolling; it’s von Trier taking a microscope to his creative process in all its obsessive ugliness, creating a sophisticated meta-commentary on his art and daring the audience not to be entertained by his extreme indulgence in all the predilections for which he’s been roundly criticized. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoDec 17, 2018
The film finds von Trier wrestling with the claims of misogyny and misanthropy that have followed him his entire career, but not in the way you’d expect. If anything, he leans into both, daring you to look into the abyss with him as he interrogates his own dark side and banishes himself to the underworld. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeDec 16, 2018
This sporadically arresting slice of grand guignol takes pointed swipes at misogyny while occasionally seeming to wallow in it. Perhaps its greatest sin is one of bad timing. As always with Von Trier, we can only guess whether that sin is intentional or ironic. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 16, 2018
The film lands somewhere between self-flagellation and apologia; however hard von Trier is on himself, he’s not above mounting defenses, and he spares plenty of punishment for us, too. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenDec 13, 2018
Von Trier has managed to cobble together just enough of interest — odd moments, pieces of performance, stray ideas and the simple audacity of putting this mess out into the world, that it feels like there may be something there worth considering, a maddening possibility. And that may be his cruelest prank of all. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 16, 2018
The House That Jack Built, however, only rarely achieves that level of disturbing poetic awe. The film lopes along in a way that’s grimly absorbing yet, at the same time, falls short of fully immersive. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 16, 2018
Wielding the same grim power as his most obsessive, tormented work, Jack is deeply embedded within its creator’s psyche, and while the results may be cathartic for him, the movie is only intermittently arresting for the rest of us. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiDec 19, 2018
The film feels rote, an exercise of base and pedestrian concerns that never moves beyond anything resembling a statement. Of which there is none, except perhaps von Trier regarding his navel, which I suspect he wouldn’t have it any other way. For the rest of us? We suffer, which is most likely by the director’s design. Read full review
40
TheWrapYolanda MachadoDec 14, 2018
The House Jack Built feels slightly gratuitous, at times trying to be artistic while simultaneously begging for people to love it, or to love von Trier, pretty pretty please. [R-rated Version] Read full review
40
EmpireOlly RichardsDec 10, 2018
One of von Trier’s most confrontingly horrible films is also one of his weakest. A story about a man disguising his lack of worthwhile contribution with violent self-interest is guilty of every point it’s making. Read full review
40
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 24, 2018
It’s not that you can’t see what Von Trier is getting at, it’s just you wish he’d get there quicker and without all the desecrated bodies. For most of its hefty runtime, The House That Jack Built is just a slog. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 16, 2018
It is two and a half hours of self-reflexive torture porn with an entire McDonald’s warehouse of chips on its shoulder, and a handful of genuinely provocative ideas which, exasperatingly, go nowhere much. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaMay 16, 2018
The film’s most offensive qualities have nothing to do with its grotesque violence and displays of human mutilation, but its terminal navel-gazing and reductive, borderline harmful ideas about art. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 16, 2018
Clearly, all this is designed to provoke adverse reactions. But what if instead of outrage and indignation, the response was a numb shrug? Don't get me wrong — The House That Jack Built is definitely something to see. But what's most surprising is that it's just as often inane as unsettling. Read full review
40
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 16, 2018
After all is said and done, ‘The House that Lars Built’ is an impressive construction for an obnoxious purpose. In fact, the best criticism comes from Talking Heads and their song Psycho Killer: “You’re talking a lot but you’re not really saying anything.” Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 16, 2018
It is an ordeal of gruesomeness and tiresomeness that was every bit as exasperating as I had feared. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 5, 2018
The only truly shocking thing about this new work, though, is the fact it took this long for von Trier to make a movie about a serial killer. For a man who loves blunt provocation, the subject should’ve been first on his hit list. Read full review
35
TheWrapSteve PondMay 16, 2018
The House That Jack Built is kind of a bore. As much as von Trier loves to push our buttons with graphic imagery, he also wants to get under our skin by talking, talking, talking. And while the gore got the headlines, the talk is what sinks the movie. Read full review
30
The New York TimesWesley MorrisDec 13, 2018
Something feels off with von Trier’s sense of artistry now. Something feels stuck, like his head’s wound up lodged in his rear, which brings the movie closer to “The Human Centipede” than I would have thought. But this isn’t cinematic horror. It’s proctology. Read full review
30
Village VoiceBilge EbiriMay 16, 2018
As a longtime admirer of the director’s work, I can’t quite believe I’m saying this, but the most shocking thing I found about The House That Jack Built is how tedious it is. A shame, because The House That Jack Built feels like a genuinely sincere attempt on the filmmaker’s part to wrestle with the legacy of his creation. Read full review
30
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 16, 2018
The House That Jack Built is a tediously navel-gazing exercise in von Trier trying to explain, and make half-hearted atonement for, his “totally twisted, man,” worldview, an explication of his personal psychology that is almost heartbreaking in its conflicted self-regard. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 10, 2019
A tedious picture about a remorseless serial killer, played by Matt Dillon. Read full review
20
Rolling StoneDavid FearDec 14, 2018
Jack proves he’s (von Trier) also capable of making a failed act of provocation. The fact that he ends the movie in hell seems superfluous. We’ve already been there for two and a half hours. Read full review
0
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 16, 2018
Perhaps The House That Jack Built is the kind of film you make when you fervently want someone to stop you, to save you from yourself and the demons of your worst nature. Perhaps, this time, we should oblige. Read full review
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