Morbid and insulting

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 2017)

In cinema there are two principal genres obsessed (and I chose that word carefully) with morbid content: pornography and horror. In the current line-up of pretentious filmmakers, perhaps the worst contemporary director Lars Von Trier has chosen to combine those genres with such morbid crap as "Anitchrist", but Darren Aronofsky limits himself to horror in this incredibly poor effort.
He succeeded in hoodwinking superstar Jennifer Lawrence, but most viewers will not be so easily swindled. The shaggy-dog narrative fits comfortably into a horror genre I enjoyed in the '70s, the modern version of the Old Dark House and Haunted House traditional genres in which a stately or decrepit mansion became the anthropomorphic protagonist: see for example "The House That Screamed" or any number of European and British productions of that era. Of course it all dates back to Poe and "Fall of the House of Usher".
But Lawrence IS in fact the house in question, not a real character but just a gimmick. We the audience identify with her and with the escalating predicaments Aronofsky puts her through, none of which are credible or even momentarily believable. Considered a great filmmaker, he actually uses a rickety, stagey structure here, with cast members suddenly appearing at the front door throughout, a hint that Lawrence is trapped in the house (she is the house it seems) and making their entrances as lame as a circa 1929 (or Silent Era) film adaptation of some drawing room comedy or drama play.
Casting Javier Bardem as her hissable, self-centered husband also helps to sink the project early on, as his behavior and unwillingness to support his wife on even the simplest or most obvious points is written off by his macho image and poor acting (like Aronofsky, Bardem is ridiculously overrated, a Kevin Spacey without the sexual aberration baggage).
Piling on special effects and trendy audience baiting red meat (cannibalism in a horror movie, anyone?) Aronofsky throws in many a red herring to explain the nonsensical action. Is Jennifer a "Gaslight" victim of a tyrannical husband? Is what's happening all just an imaginary figment of her crazy mind? Will we be treated to horror's crummiest explanation, that it was all a dream, with the requisite cliched ending of the dream starting over again? Is this a conspiracy by some demented home improvement company to get Jennifer to constantly order materials for repairing her abode?
No, it's just another garbage movie emanating during a decadent era of a once-mighty Entertainment Industry, made by a clown looking down at his audience, a practice popularized over five decades ago by Godard, who is turning out to be far more influential, in bad ways, than one ever would have prognosticated for the Nouvelle Vague innovator circa 1960.