Make no mistake about it: Irreversible is a horror movie through and through!
Gaspar Noé's notorious 2002 film is designed to disturb and unsettle in every way possible (even the score was chosen to make audiences queasy), and contains two of the most graphically violent scenes in cinema history.
The movie is told in reverse, beginning with a man (Vincent Cassell) seeking revenge for the brutal rape and beating (murder, potentially) of his girlfriend (Monica Bellucci) and working backwards as the events that brought on these terrifying ordeals come to light.
The “Straight Cut,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival back in 2019, re-cuts the film in chronological order, chopping five minutes off the runtime in the process.
Irreversible opens theatrically on February 10th at the IFC Center/NYC and the Landmark’s Nuart/LA.
“Until now, Irreversible was a deliberate puzzle," says Noe of this new version. "Presented clockwise, everything is clear, and also darker, making it easier to identify with the characters and understand the tale unfolding. The same story is no longer a tragedy, this time it is a drama that brings out the psychology of the characters and the mechanisms that lead some of them to a murderous barbarity. While Irreversible has sometimes been wrongly perceived as a ‘rape and revenge’ B movie, here the deadly outcome is all the more depressing. Irreversible: Straight Cut can be more easily seen as a fable on the contagion of barbarity and the command of the reptilian brain over the rational mind.”
Check out the new trailer and poster below.