Antichrist (18) 4/10 Devils may care.

WITH its explicit scenes of sexual intercourse and graphic depiction of genital mutilation, the new film from award-winning Danish director Lars von Trier (Dancer In The Dark) is not for the squeamish or faint of heart.

And the grim psychological horror has already polarised opinion.

A husband (Willem Dafoe) and his younger wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are engaged in lovemaking, oblivious to the actions of their baby son, who is supposedly sleeping.

In a tour-de-force prologue shot in slow motion, the infant climbs out of his cot to the strains of an aria from Handel's opera Rinaldo, opens the child safety gate and climbs up on to a table, eventually falling out of an open window to his death.

The devastated couple seek refuge in a remote woodland cabin where the spirits of the forest have a strange effect on the wife.

As tensions between the couple escalate, the grief-stricken mother unleashes her fury upon her spouse, culminating in a shocking act of self-harm.

The beauty of the opening sequence contrasts sharply with the events of the four chapters and epilogue, which may unsettle some audiences.

However, Antichrist is certainly not among the most shocking films of modern cinema - it doesn't come close - nor is it one of von Trier's finest efforts.

Antichrist is simply too ponderous to really make a serious impact, though it will linger in the memory.