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A couple of weeks ago, I complained about the serious lack of censorship-free horror movie viewing in this country, but little did I know that Phil Dy was awesome enough to show Antichrist all week at Mogwai. Thank God for (free) independent film theaters! I have been waiting to see this movie since I read an article about how its disturbing imagery made people at walk out of it at Cannes. But now that I’ve actually seen the film, I’m not entirely sure what to think.

Let me begin by saying that Antichrist the kind of movie that invites pretentious readings. If you really want to take it apart and talk to your friends about it, you’re going to end up sounding like a douchey, know-it-all critic. Antichrist is very heavy on the imagery, and there’s no other way to talk about the movie without the risk of reading too much into it. The film opens with a couple deep in the throes of lovemaking, completely oblivious to their young son who was slowly crawling his way out their apartment window. (The opening sequence actually had a shot of penis-vagina penetration, woot!) After their son dies, the wife experiences severe depression, which her therapist husband tries to help her recover from. He suggests that they retreat into a cabin deep in the woods so she could overcome the fears and anxieties triggered by their son’s death.

From this point onwards, it’s hard to say what happens next without revealing important (and complicated) details, and without inserting your own interpretation of the events. Let’s just say that after a while, the wife goes batshit insane and some very graphic genital mutilation occurs.

THE CUT CONTAINS SPOILERS GALORE!

This is where my douchey, know-it-all analysis comes in: Antichrist is a movie about man’s fear of woman. I’m not saying that it’s anti-feminist or pro-chauvinist or any of that. It’s simply about fear of the unknowable, irrational female. The grieving processed was very gendered from the start – the husband remained the calm, logical one while the wife was a sobbing, hyperventilating mess. His attempt to “fix” her was more a form of control than a form of love, since it was clear that terrible consequences would happen if moods spun out of control. The movie was also explicit about using nature as a metaphor for evil. On a bad day, nature can be capable of destruction, death, and evil (the movie’s tagline even says so). But nature as a living force is also gendered concept; you can’t talk about nature without referring to it as a woman. One of the things that makes nature so “womanly” are her mood swings, which need to be tamed if we are to live harmoniously with her. Even though we have technology that controls and predicts nature, none of us can actually survive nature’s unpredictable wrath when we do lose control of her – or when she chooses to go batshit insane on us. This loss of control is exactly what happened in the woods. Upon recalling his wife’s confession about her fear of nature and the evil it is capable of, the husband realized that she was actually afraid of herself and the things she could do if she does snap. However, the epiphany came too late. His wife suddenly attacks him from out of nowhere, and things start to get really interesting. To protect himself, the husband kills her, which makes him the anti-Christ. Anti-Christ = anti-savior. Get it?

So now that I’ve told you what I think Antichrist is about (in a manner that was hopefully not too full of bullshit), I suppose I should start answering the question of whether or not it’s worth watching. Unfortunately, there’s no easy yes or no answer for this, because I still haven’t decided if I like Antichrist or not. I can, however, give some indicators that will help you decide.

The biggest apprehension I had about Antichrist was the gore factor. When I read about people walking out of the cinema in horror, I assumed that the imagery would be as graphic and disturbing as the one in Martyrs. But to date, Martyrs is still the most visually disturbing film I’ve ever seen (even though I cheated and skipped the last 15 minutes). I’m not saying that Antichrist won’t make you squirm in your seat at all. Different things terrify different people, and Antichrist just didn’t contain those terrifying things that will make me sleep with the lights on for weeks.

One other thing you might want to know about Antichrist – it’s an artsy-fartsy flick. It’s very heavy on visual techniques like slow motion, it’s mostly-dialogue driven, and the action doesn’t start picking up til the last 45 minutes or so of the film. If you’re the type who wants gore gore gore now, you may not enjoy spending over an hour waiting for things to get interesting. Come to think of it, the movie wasn’t actually as gory as I thought it would be. In fact, there was far more sex than gore. The only scenes that truly frightened me were those that built up the suspense, and it was mostly due to the eerie music in the background. Despite its slow pace, Antichrist didn’t drag on for too long, and I was pretty surprised when I found out that it was over.

What will probably entice you to see Antichrist is that it’s showing at Mogwai for free. Yup, that’s right, the movie will only cost you an hour and a half of your life. So even if you decide that you don’t like the movie, you probably won’t feel too bad about making the effort to see it.

I still don’t know if I liked Antichrist or not, but it’s enough that I was able to figure out the movie for myself.

Mogwai will be showing Antichrist at 9 pm every night until Saturday. And Mogwai, for those who don’t know, is somewhere in Cubao X (formerly Marikina Shoe Expo).