User blog:AustinDR/PE Proposal: Jack (The House That Jack Built)

What is the work?
The House That Jack Built is a controversial horror film by Lars von Trier, the director behind such works as Antichrist (blegh). The film stars Matt Dillon in the role of the titular Jack, who is a prolific serial killer who starts off trying to build his "dream house" but there are many obstacles to him achieving his goal.

Will make a page for him later.

Who is he?
Jack is a man who thinks highly of himself. While he had delusions of grandeur, he was truly a sociopathic serial killer who killed over sixty people in a course of 12 years. His killing spree is divided into different chapters. In the first one, he takes a woman to a mechanic when her tire jack is broken. During the ride, she jokes around calling Jack a serial killer...and when the tire jack broke again, he murders the woman and hides her body in an industrialized freezer.

Later on, he goes to another woman and knocks on her door claiming to be a pension of her deceased husband. When he gets in, he tries to strangle her to death and when he has a "My God, what am I doing?" moment, he offers her some water and a stale doughnut so she could suffocate on them. When that doesn't work, he stabs her through the heart. From this, he takes on the alias of "Mister Sophistication" due to his obsessive compulsive need to clean up after his murders. While he gets into heated territory with a police officer, he seemingly got away scot-free.

The worst instance of his murder spree? He meets a young mother and starts dating her. This leads to him going on a picnic in the wilderness with his girlfriend and her sons. He kills both of her sons with a sniper rifle and forces her to "feed" one of her slain children. He then has her walk a distance before shooting and killing her. He then arranges their bodies into an art piece. For added insult to injury, he decides to stitch a smile on one of the corpses of the boys.

Later on, he starts to date another woman whom he referred to as "Simple." Here, he confesses to being Mr. Sophistication and that he had already killed 60+ people. She initially doesn't believe him but when he started to do something weird, she tried to escape only to end in her being killed and having one of her breasts sliced off and placed on the back of a police vehicle.

On the day that he was found out, he had kidnapped 5 men and had them lined up. He was going to see if he could massacre them with one bullet. Unfortunately for him, the bullet he got was a full metal jacket. When going to buy the right bullet, he kills the clerk and a police officer before returning to the industrial freezer. There, he meets a man named Verge (who is Virgil from the Divine Comedy) who takes him on a trip through Hell. Eventually, Jack realizes that he was sent to Hell for punishment of his many sins. He tries to escape despite learning that his "bridge" burned down years ago, only to fall into the eternal pit below.

Character Traits
Like I had said already, he is an egotistical serial killer who tries to excuse his crimes as an expression of art but is nothing more than a pretentious lunatic. I should mention that there is one scene in the film where he cries while looking at a field, but this does nothing to indicate that he now felt remorse for his actions. Instead, he tries to escape a punishment he rightfully deserved.

Moral Event Horizon
While he already was a prolific murderer at that point, the worse moment is when he kills two defenseless children and forces their mom to partake in a twisted picnic with the dead bodies before killing her.

Heinous Standards
Only villain. Sets it, what with him having over 60 murders to his name.

Moral Agency
He's a sociopath, but he obviously knows that what he does is wrong.

No Redeeming Qualities
That goes without saying.

No Sympathy
Why feel bad that he falls into Hell at the end? He deserved every bit of it.

Screen Time
As the main protagonist, he naturally takes up a lot of the time slot.