Director Darren Aronofsky (L) poses with actors Javier Bardem (R), Jennifer Lawrence (2nd R) and Michelle Pfeiffer during a photocall for the movie "Mother!" at the 74th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy September 5, 2017. (Reuters Photo)
Venice: Director Darren Aronofsky says his film "mother!" — a delirious nightmare starring Jennifer Lawrence — is a "roller-coaster ride."
Fittingly, it thrilled some viewers at the Venice Film Festival, and left others a bit queasy.
A horror story that travels from menace to mind-bending mayhem, the movie was greeted with a mix of applause and boos from journalists Tuesday at the Italian festival, where it's one of 21 movies competing for the Golden Lion prize.
Lawrence and Javier Bardem play a couple — identified only as Mother and Him — living in that horror-flick staple, an isolated old house. He's a poet with writer's block, while she devotes herself to restoring the house after a devastating fire.
Mysterious houseguests, played by Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer, trigger unsettling events that get progressively weirder. Imagine a cross between "Rosemary's Baby" and the teeming hell-scapes of medieval artist Hieronymus Bosch.
Aronofsky, who won the Golden Lion in 2008 for "The Wrestler," acknowledged the movie was "a very, very strong cocktail."
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