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Explicit Sexual Gore Causes ‘Antichrist’ Controversy at Cannes

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At the top of my list as “most anticipated” for 2009 is Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, which just had its world premiere at the ongoing Cannes market/festival. I’ve been patiently awaiting the buzz, good or bad, and have instead found myself interested for all the wrong reasons – “explicit sexual gore”. Apparently it was so intense it caused an uproar during a press conference where reporters asked von Trier to explain himself. Read on for this breaking story.
From the Hollywood Reporter:

Declaring himself “the world’s greatest director,” 53-year-old Dane Lars von Trier defended his enfant terrible title with aplomb at the Monday news conference for his Competition shocker “Antichrist.”

It started with a shouting match between Daily Mail columnist Baz Bamigboye and other members of the press corps, with Bamigboye demanding von Trier “explain and justify” the explicit sexual gore in his film and another journo in the audience yelling “He’s an artist, you’re not. He doesn’t have to explain anything!”

And he didn’t. On questions both abusive and toadying, von Trier maintained his autistic savant persona, deliberately avoiding any explanation of “Antichrist,” alternatively mocking or dismissing his interrogators.

“I don’t have to explain anything. You are all my guests here, not the other way round,” von Trier said. “Anyway, I don’t think about the audience when I make a film. I don’t care. I make films for myself.”

Von Trier did defend his use of nausea-inducing imagery — including a bloody masturbation scene and a leg-drilling sequence that could have been cribbed from the “Saw” franchise — as artistic “honesty,” saying to leave the shockers out would have been “like lying.”

He also insisted he was not playing a joke on the audience but meant everything, from the film’s talking fox to the closing dedication to Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, a dedication that drew howls of laughter at last night’s press screening, to be taken seriously.

But, as always, von Trier tried to have it both ways, joking that it was “a bit of a pity” one can’t actually kill people on screen and putting the blame for the most extreme scenes on lead actress Charlotte Gainsbourg.

“Charlotte took it too far. I tried to, but I just couldn’t stop her,” von Trier quipped.

Horror movie fanatic who co-founded Bloody Disgusting in 2001. Producer on Southbound, V/H/S/2/3/94, SiREN, Under the Bed, and A Horrible Way to Die. Chicago-based. Horror, pizza and basketball connoisseur. Taco Bell daily. Franchise favs: Hellraiser, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. Horror 365 days a year.

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‘Wolf Man’ Movie from Universal and Director Leigh Whannell Moves into 2025

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Wolf Man 2025

Filming kicked off just a couple weeks ago on The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man for Universal and Blumhouse, which had been ambitiously dated for release on October 25, 2024. As it turns out, however, a Halloween 2024 release was a bit too ambitious.

THR reports that Wolf Man will howl its way into theaters on January 17, 2025.

Christopher Abbott (Poor Things) has been cast in the titular role.

Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott as a man whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator.

Julia Garner (The Royal Hotel) will also star.

Writers include Whannell & Corbett Tuck as well as Lauren Schuker Blum & Rebecca Angelo.

Jason Blum is producing the film. Ryan Gosling, Ken Kao, Bea Sequeira, Mel Turner and Whannell are executive producers. Wolf Man is a Blumhouse and Motel Movies production.

The project will mark Whannell’s second monster movie and fourth directing collaboration with Blumhouse Productions (The Invisible Man, Upgrade, Insidious: Chapter 3).

In the wake of the failed Dark Universe, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man has been the only real success story for the Universal Monsters brand, which has been struggling with recent box office flops including the comedic Renfield and period horror movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Giving him the keys to the castle once more seems like a wise idea, to say the least.

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