Editorials
The Immersive Examination of Depression and Grief in ‘Antichrist’ [Unveiling The Mind]
Welcome to Unveiling The Mind. This bi-monthly column takes an analytical look at art that explores mental illness. In this month’s entry, I look back on Lars Von Trier’s 2009 feature, Antichrist.
Around the time I watched Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, I was in a rough place. Since childhood, I’ve struggled with on and off depression. Sometimes I’ve gone for great stretches of time without any suffering, then sometimes it’ll randomly appear. Perhaps because of having depression, I’ve been drawn to darker forms of art; I’ve adored horror movies for as long as I can remember. Eventually, I found myself a means to watch Antichrist and checked it out.
Upon watching the film, I was captivated. I want to say I saw Antichrist for the first time roughly 10 years ago. The film is the first installment in Von Trier’s unofficial “Depression Trilogy”; after Antichrist follows Melancholia and Nymphomaniac. Though I adore Melancholia and find elements of Nymphomaniac to be fascinating, Antichrist is the film that has stuck with me the longest of Von Trier’s works.
Von Trier has stated that the film was the result of him striving to cope with a bad depressive episode. It’s worth noting that Antichrist involves a variety of themes, not just pertaining to mental illness. That said, I thought it would be interesting to revisit the film and critique how it examines depression and grief.
There will be spoilers ahead.
Antichrist follows She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and He (Willem Dafoe). The film opens with the two having sex; at the same time, the camera jumps to their small child crawling out of his crib. As the two continue to make love, we watch as the child eventually makes his way to a nearby windowsill, falling out and plummeting to the ground. With the child’s death, She and He enter a state of grieving. What is important to note throughout the film is how both individuals handle their grief. She takes the death more personally, whereas He appears to move on relatively faster.
In that opening scene, we are immediately brought into a bleak world. Later parts of the film contain a plethora of fantastical qualities (most of us know of the “Chaos Reigns” fox). But the nature of Antichrist is quite dream-like. The black and white colors and intensified classical music create a surreal entrance. So much is happening between the parents having sex and the child making his way out of the crib, yet, everything is shown in slow motion. As the viewer, though, we grasp the physical tension of the sex and absorb the terror of the child falling out the window.
It is here where Von Trier implements the essential aspect to Antichrist’s horror – establishing an atmospheric depression the audience actively partakes in.
The color palette of Antichrist comes with sullen vibes; even with some bright colors appearing, there is always a dark tint to everything. On an auditory level, there are moments of brief dissonant and minimal sounds presenting unease. But there is also no sound sometimes, making each scene of violence jarring in its visceral delivery. Along with Gainsbourg and Dafoe’s acting, the technical aspects of Antichrist exude depressive energies. This is the type of film experience that, though it has much to offer, is also draining.
For those who don’t suffer, it is tough to describe the pain that is depression. It is not a matter of just feeling “sad,” but a sincere sense that hope is lost. That you cannot possibly obtain peace or love. Movement and vision can feel like they are in a haze. The “color of life” can come across empty. It is like drowning in a thick syrup and not having the will to claw one’s way out. On that note, Antichrist achieves the sensory aspects of depression, making for an experience that offers some form of insight for those who don’t have depression (for the most part).
One thing I have to address before moving forward is the film’s problematic elements, specifically that of the villainous and hysteric shift of She. One could argue that her brutal violence and lack of rationale may be aligned with other matters of mental illness, but I feel that, towards the end, Von Trier is more so trying to gross us out. Given that the film leads to such intense heights, I do not feel that the later portion of the story fairly represents grief or depression. All that said, I don’t feel that the majority of Antichrist is overly exploitative in its displays of mental illness.
Upon the death of her son, She enters a state of grief. One can sense the ache in her face, how her eyes stare blankly into life. Her grief comes out in shifting forms of self-harm and heightened sexuality. If she isn’t bashing her head into a toilet, she is aggressively trying to have sex with her husband. Her anguish gradually builds, unleashing in vicious acts (such as the mutilation of her clitoris).
To help his wife through her grief, He asks her what she fears; She says nature. In an effort to attempt exposure therapy, He says they will take a trip to Eden; this is a place in the woods where She spent a summer with her son working on her thesis. Over the course of their time in Eden, She begins to feel an overwhelming connection to the woods around her. Speaking to her thesis, she brings up how, “Nature is Satan’s church.” Obviously, this may be taken as a metaphor for human nature and our actions on earth.
Of my own opinion, one way I like to read this line is as a statement regarding “the nature of the brain.” Besides the impact medicine and other remedies may have on our minds, we don’t have immediate control over the chemicals in our brain. Upon re-entering Eden, the aggression of Gainsbourg’s character intensifies. In the woods, it appears as if her “nature” is taking over her. Along with her elevated aggression, the film portrays a variety of visuals associated with death. Von Trier is certainly pulling from some Freudian logic, adding to the iffy aspects of Antichrist’s narrative and thematic exploration.
What further adds to these grim moments with She is how the viewer experiences them through the husband’s point-of-view. We get a few moments where we are left alone with She, but for the most part, our understanding of her is through dialogue and the husband trying to work with her. It is that dialogue that also serves to address the concept of mental illness. Many of the conversations the couple have are focused on coping with grief and other mental matters. As a therapist, He is driven to help his wife in a scientific manner, while She leans towards more visceral emotion (and eventually hysteria as her sanity snaps).
The dialogue is primarily present as to let the viewer in on the film’s observations surrounding mental illness. Given how intimate Antichrist is in its settings and characters, the audience feels even closer to the dialogue taking place. He strives to breakdown every feeling his wife is having with cold logic, rarely taking on a warmer, sympathetic approach. On the other hand, She is more emotional and reactionary to his advice. The two of them are clearly meant to represent the two sides of thought (in the broadest terms, logical and emotional). It is those debates and conversations between the couple that elevate the film’s depressive tone.
In all the years since I’ve seen this film, I find myself still thinking about it. There are parts of it I find problematic and not to my liking – but I am still stunned by it. Part of that is because of how exposed of a film Antichrist is; nothing feels protected, the suffering is bare. Where many may feel like their agony with mental illness is invisible to the world, Antichrist puts that horror up front and before the eyes of an audience. Obviously, everyone with mental illness has a different experience; but in an atmospheric sense, it represents that dreadful hell.
The cinematography, sound, acting and the story all strive to fuel Antichrist’s depressive presentation. Whether it is through emitting a depressive tone or literally speaking to the subject of grief, Antichrist makes for an immersive experience on such haunting struggles. This is a film that takes the invisible specter of mental illness and displays it not only in a physical fashion, but in a way the viewer can truly feel.
On July 13th, 2026, the world lost one of its brightest stars.
Beloved New Zealand actor Sam Neill passed away from pneumonia after a long battle with stage 3 lymphoma. The multifaceted movie star will be remembered by mainstream audiences for his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 masterpiece Jurassic Park, as well as powerful turns in A Cry in the Dark (1988), The Piano (1993), and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), and prestige TV series The Tudors and Peaky Blinders. But horror fans know him as one of the genre’s most surprising Scream Kings.
Through a handful of memorable starring roles, Neill spent the 80s and 90s bringing life to a wide variety of characters and finding humanity in the most unusual leading roles, regardless of how heroic or villainous.
The Final Conflict (1981)
After a decade on the stage and screen in New Zealand and Australia, Neill made his international debut as Damien Thorn in Graham Baker’s The Final Conflict, the third installment of The Omen franchise. Now a 36-year-old businessman, Damien is fully aware of his devilish parentage and hell-bent on world domination. But rather than a hooved and horned monstrosity, Neill’s Antichrist is a suave businessman who leads his followers in an expensive suit and seeks to bring about the apocalypse through deceptive altruism rather than grand proclamation.
Despite his austere demeanor, the man’s true evil knows no bounds. When a prophecy foretells the second coming of Christ, known in the film as “the Nazarene,” Damien commands his followers to commit widespread infanticide, murdering all baby boys born on a specific date. He seduces a high-profile reporter while transforming her teenage son into a bloodthirsty disciple, then uses the child as a human shield. This tricky role allows Neill to demonstrate his trademark versatility, easily charming the outside world while dropping his suave mask of normalcy behind closed doors. Though certain aspects of The Final Conflict are admittedly dated, Neill’s performance feels eerily prescient. He’s mastered the heinous portrayal of a politician willing to sell his soul for power that will ultimately bring about the end of the world.
Possession (1981)
Though Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession is often remembered for Isabelle Adjani’s stunning depiction of a woman on the edge, Neill delivers an equally unhinged performance as Mark, a spy returning home from a lengthy assignment in divided Berlin. Upon discovering that his wife Anna (Adjani) wants a divorce, Mark desperately tries to hold his family together even at the expense of her sanity. Filmed the same year as The Final Conflict, Neill dives headfirst into this visceral role, managing to evoke sympathy for the distraught father who becomes ever more desperate to regain control. Inspired by his own divorce, Żuławski resists blaming either party for the separation, instead showing the chaos and heartache that comes in the wake of a family’s dissolution.
Once considered to replace Roger Moore as the next James Bond, Neill has fun with the international spy persona as Żuławski’s plot grows increasingly bizarre. But the skilled actor never lets us forget that Mark is a flawed human being struggling to keep his life from falling apart. A second character emerges in the film’s mesmerizing climax, allowing Neill to lean into full villainy with a glassy-eyed stare that chills to the bone. Now a cult classic, Adjani and Neill bounce off each other’s seething rage, creating one of the most effective cinematic duets in the history of horror.
Jurassic Park (1993)
When Steven Spielberg’s creature feature first hit theaters, Neill was by no means a household name and hardly a traditional leading man. Without the swashbuckling swagger of Harrison Ford, the mega-watt smile of Tom Cruise, or the chiselled jaw of Brad Pitt — all famous action stars of the era — Neill felt like an unconventional choice for this massive role. But he perfectly captures the essence of Grant, an aloof academic who prefers dig sites to fancy fundraisers and social events. Despite an aversion to children, the dinosaur expert finds himself tasked with saving the theme park’s youngest survivors who gradually break down his emotional walls. Grant’s transformation into a courageous caretaker is a landmark deconstruction of traditional gender norms wrapped in the guise of a rugged outdoorsman.
Neill proves to be the perfect action star, effortlessly navigating Spielberg’s stunning set pieces without losing the character’s relatable hook. But perhaps the film’s most touching moment is Neill’s childlike wonder at seeing a dinosaur for the first time. Stunned to speechlessness, he channels the audience’s wondrous joy when Grant first spies a real, live Brachiosaurus. But he seamlessly weaves this infectious awe into serious concerns about the creature’s existence, amplifying the story’s prophetic messaging. Jeff Goldblum may utter the film’s iconic warning, but the duality of Grant’s performance perfectly illustrates the scientific imperative, reminding us that just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
Neill would go on to lead Joe Johnston’s 2001 sequel Jurassic Park III, in which Grant is again tasked with saving a child. In 2022, he would appear in Colin Trevorrow’s legacy sequel Jurassic World Dominion, which merges the franchise’s two distinct eras while bringing the carnage onto mainland shores. Despite turning in strong performances, neither film is able to top the magic of Spielberg’s original or Neill’s captivating performance as the stoic leading man. But his nuanced depiction of Alan Grant inspired a generation of would-be paleontologists and quiet kids who could now see themselves as courageous academics capable of surprising strength.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
After catapulting to worldwide fame, Neill returned to horror proper to lead John Carpenter’s mind-bending In the Mouth of Madness. We first meet John Trent (Neill) as he’s dragged, kicking and screaming, into a padded cell. An unknown stretch of time later, he recounts an unbelievable story while covered in protective crosses scrawled into his skin — and the cell’s walls — with black crayon. A private investigator, Trent has been tasked with locating Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), a world-famous yet elusive genre author whose work has been driving his ravenous readers to disturbing acts of random violence.
A love letter to fans of horror fiction, we delight in watching Trent explore literary easter eggs that lead him down jarring rabbit holes. A late-night road trip takes Trent and Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), an editor for Cane’s publishing house, to a tiny New England hamlet teeming with darkness. While investigating an ominous cathedral on the outskirts of town, Trent realizes that he’s somehow been transported into the author’s interdimensional story and become its unwitting protagonist.
Neill serves as a skeptical everyman and the audience’s conduit through this bizarre tale of literary monsters that find a way to burst through the page. An often overlooked Carpenter film, In the Mouth of Madness spirals into insanity, but Neill keeps us grounded throughout each outlandish twist. A shocking conclusion leaves us gaping at our screens and contemplating our own relationship with horror fiction. After all, does free will truly exist? Or, like Trent, are we merely pawns in someone else’s monstrous creation?
Event Horizon (1997)
One of the scariest movies ever set in space, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon builds upon the heroic image Neill established for himself in Jurassic Park. Dr. William Weir (Neill) is a physicist temporarily joining the crew of the Lewis and Clark to assist in their latest rescue mission. Seven years after vanishing without a trace, a spaceship called the Event Horizon has suddenly reappeared near Neptune’s orbit. As the creator of a top-secret gravity drive designed to facilitate faster-than-light travel, Dr. Weir has been sent to explore the ship and find out what happened to its missing crew.
Still haunted by his late wife’s suicide, Dr. Weir is a sympathetic figure, particularly in comparison to the harsh Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) who commands the crew of the Lewis and Clark. But Weir’s desperation to return to the infamous ship hides a sinister secret that leads his fellow astronauts to the threshold of hell. Neill’s talent for playing the everyman pays off in spades as the formerly sympathetic widower transforms into a disciple of this frightening dimension. Resembling a long-lost cenobite, Weir claws out his own eyes and prepares to drag the crew into a world consumed with sadistic pain.
Daybreakers (2009)
Neill returns to his Omen roots in Michael and Peter Spierig’s action-packed film as a secretly sinister businessman. But rather than the Antichrist, Charles Bromley (Neill) is a proud vampire convinced of the species’ superiority. With human blood in short supply, Bromley Marks Corp. is working on a synthetic substitute to prevent the human race from impending extinction. While hematologists perfect the formula, Bromley oversees disturbing fields of humans chained to massive machines that systematically harvest their blood.
Neill chills in this sinister role with vampiric yellow eyes, a pale complexion, and subtle fangs. But more upsetting is the fact that he honestly doesn’t believe he’s wrong. Once diagnosed with cancer, Bromley was delighted to find that vampirism would totally reverse his illness and grant him the gift of eternal life. He begged his daughter Alison (Isabel Lucas) to turn alongside him, but she has rejected her father’s controversial choice and is now hunted by his bloodthirsty goons. In a heartbreaking moment of clarity, Bromley brings his daughter to the brink of death, then turns away in disgust when she will not embrace his undead lifestyle.
Daybreakers is a surprisingly thrilling exploration of survival and sustainability. Similar to a plot Damien Thorn would hatch, Bromley’s ultimate plan is to placate the vampire population with synthetic blood while allowing the human population to replenish itself. With a larger stock, he plans to sell authentic humans at a premium, hunting these poor souls to season the meat. Bromley rejects a cure that would reverse the vampiric disease, choosing to enrich himself over saving the world. The strangely captivating villain’s end is a cathartic nightmare and fitting punishment for a wealthy man who places himself above everyone else.
In the Mouth of Madness
While the world may remember Neill for his signature role as a gruff but compassionate paleontologist going head to head with a raging T-Rex, horror fans may picture the versatile actor maniacally rocking back and forth in a filthy Berlin apartment, commanding a boardroom of corporate vampires, disappearing into the darkness of a haunted spaceship, sermonizing to satanists, or giggling over popcorn in a deserted movie theater. Or perhaps you have another favorite role in the beloved actor’s stellar career. But whether he was playing a hero or villain, Neill brought undeniable humanity to every role, redefining our idea of masculinity and the very nature of goodness vs. evil. By bringing such disparate characters to life, Neill challenged audiences with a variety of complex roles, asking us to examine the humanity of each character no matter how flawed or virtuous.
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