Director Lars von Trier has shared a new piece of art for his controversial The House That Jack Built that echoes Eugène Delacroix’s “The Barque Of Dante” (1822), which is loosely based on fictional events taken from canto eight of “Dante’s Inferno”.

“A leaden, smoky mist and the blazing City of the Dead form the backdrop against which the poet Dante endures a fearful crossing of the River Styx,” wiki explains. “He is steadied by the learned poet of antiquity Virgil as they plough through waters heaving with tormented souls.”

In the film, Matt Dillon (“Wayward Pines”) stars as a serial killer who views each of his murders as a work of art.

Uma Thurman (Kill Bill), Bruno Ganz (Downfall), and Riley Keough (Mad Max: Fury Road) also star with South Korean actor, Yu Ji-tae, best known to us genre fans as the antagonist in Park Chan-wook’s 2003 hardboiled thriller Oldboy.

“The House That Jack Built takes place in 1970s USA. We follow the highly intelligent Jack through 5 incidents and are introduced to the murders that define Jack’s development as a serial killer. We experience the story from Jack’s point of view. He views each murder as an artwork in itself, even though his dysfunction gives him problems in the outside world. Despite the fact that the final and inevitable police intervention is drawing ever near (which both provokes and puts pressure on Jack) he is – contrary to all logic – set on taking greater and greater chances. Along the way we experience Jack’s descriptions of his personal condition, problems and thoughts through a recurring conversation with the unknown Verge – a grotesque mixture of sophistry mixed with an almost childlike self-pity and in-depth explanations of, for Jack, dangerous and difficult maneuvers.”