Lars von Trier's provocative new film Antichrist has revolted film festival audiences around the world, prompting booing at Cannes, vomit in Toronto, and now seizures in New York, according to multiple reports. Is von Trier the new Mary Hart? Indiewire files this report from Friday night's New York Film Festival premiere:
Sometime in between on-screen mutilations, I hear this loud moan coming from behind me, followed by a loud thud. Immediately the entire audience at Alice Tully Hall was in a frenzy, most of us unsure as to what happened (I had thought someone fell off the balcony considering how loud the thud was), though it later became clear a man had a seizure. People starting screaming “Call an Ambulance!”; “Call 9/11” (including the familiar voice of actress Lili Taylor, who was apparently beside the man) as Charlotte Gainsbourg continued on her psychotic onscreen mission.
Finally the film was shut off and the house lights came on, and 4 or 5 policemen entered the theater, helping the man (who was apparently okay) out. And then, after a few moments of whispering between audience members trying to figure out what had happened, “Antichrist” came back on.
Didn't any of these people see Saw? A commenter on Hollywood Elsewhere says he was at the screening and confirms the chaotic scene, and Indiewire later heard rumors that it was just "a panic attack." Either way, it wouldn't have been the first such audience freak-out at the NYFF; in 1994 someone either fainted or had a heart attack during the Uma Thurman syringe scene in Pulp Fiction.
And Gothamist's Jen Chung tells us when she saw Auto-Focus at NYFF, her friend started to have some sort of seizure. Oddly, Auto-Focus and Antichrist both star scary actor Willem Dafoe. Coincidence? Or is Dafoe the new Mary Hart! (Someone has to be.) Watch the trailer for Antichrist below, and try not to swallow your tongue.
