Antichrist Rebounding from a bout of severe depression that he claims left him unable to work, Danish Dogme 95 daddy Lars von Trier has returned to some of his favorite themes and devices in a new film provocatively called Antichrist. Von Trier won a loyal and sometimes uncritical following for his 1996 masterwork Breaking the Waves, in which a naive young woman embarks on a series of affairs in the hope of somehow alleviating her husband's paralysis. Bold in content and style, Breaking the Waves ensured that every time the self-taught cinema rebel got up on the diving board, there would be eager fans waiting to see if there was water in the pool. Perhaps no other world-class director is capable of bouncing from five stars to none with the same band of critics.

With Antichrist, the pool is nearly bone-dry, with the notable exception of a riveting prologue where the filmmaker sets his doomed couple up for their bloody fall from grace. In a brilliant display of content married to style, we see a mature couple we will know only as He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) heading for orgiastic bliss, while their pre-school son Nic (Storm Acheche Sahlstrom) escapes from his crib and hurtles to his death out an unlatched window, accompanied by his teddy bear. Von Trier pulls every style rabbit out of his hat, making glorious use of slow motion, b/w images, parallel action. Hauntingly, the mother's orgasm is expertly synched to her baby's fatal plunge, implicitly indicting, perhaps, female sexual expression, or maybe all erotic pleasure.

Nic's death pushes She into a catatonic state of grief which He foolishly attempts to address by arrogantly substituting himself for her regular therapist, and insisting that the therapy take place in an isolated forest cabin, rather portentously labeled "Eden."

Von Trier addresses Antichrist's dangling metaphors in the film's production notes. He doesn't address them on screen, however, leaving his talented cast to frolic frantically around the cabin with a weird collection of mechanized forest creatures, including a seemingly rabid fox who finds a voice: "Chaos reigns!" At which point, the Friday date-night crowd I was with broke into a nervous and partially mocking wave of laughter. Advisory: If you don't wish to see hardware tools employed in genital mutilation and worse, take the fox's cry as your cue to exit the theatre. Believe me, you'll only miss the gore, as no edification is forthcoming.

Dafoe and Gainsbourg are troupers delivering the maximum, even in the buff. If you wait for Antichrist on DVD, you might rent The Cement Garden, a 1992 family implosion drama where Gainsbourg falls into an incestuous bond with her teenage brother; directed by her real uncle, Andrew Birkin, based on a story by author Ian McEwan.

Pig Hunt This Bay Area-produced, blood-spattered adventure from James Isaac puts you in the company of a racially diverse group of young upscale San Francisco folks as they push way beyond their limits into Deliverance territory. Our hero, John Hickman (Travis Aaron Wade has the body and moxie of a mixed martial arts fighter), is guiding his girlfriend and drinking buddies to his family's ranch, where legend has it a huge wild boar roams "the moors." This bizarre premise plays out like an offbeat mix of soft-core porn, macho buddy flick and biker movie. Lovers of skinny cute guys should take a gander at Nick Tagas as a twitchy backwoodsman before his premature demise. Tagas' death is your exit cue if you aren't really devoted to horror of the blood-and-guts school. Pig Hunt plays a limited engagement at the Red Vic Movie House, starting Fri., Oct. 30.