Like they did with the scissor schism poster, the marketers make Antichrist look like a pretty good 2-minute horror flick — by removing the other 103 minutes of hollow misanthropic brainy stuff.
The beginning of Antichrist was fascinating, peeping through the emotional keyhole at Charlotte Gainsbourg’s breathtaking portrayal of deranged relationshipwreckage. The haunting cinematography, jumpy dialogue, and unsettling direction in the first 50 minutes promised to be a great setup for the final psychological breakdown. But then the more berserk things got, the more disengaged I became. Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe says, “I don’t think I breathed for the last half.” About the time Morris stopped breathing, I stopped caring. The only thing I felt in the second half was the sensation of a red hot icepick dipped in pepper spray stabbing me in the eye, as punishment for being intrigued by the first half.