Unfortunately, I cannot grant that. If you look to the past, movies like I Spit on Your Grave and Mother’s Day were available at theaters, probably at more theaters than will show this. Antichrist will be a niche product that few will ever see, but almost certainly will not be as offensive as the likes of Cannibal Holocaust and Caligula, both of which were distributed to theaters in this country. That is not to mention Emanuelle in America, which most people would find incredibly offensive given the scene with the horse. Censorship is significantly stronger now than it was at the height of this country’s decadence, the mid to late 70s and very early 80s. The central difference is the change in theaters entirely. While giving a film like Midnight Cowboy an X rating is interesting, it had little to no effect on its distribution. Now, with most theaters belonging to chains (whereas in the 70s most theaters were independent, and drive-ins were still common), it is difficult to get an NC-17 movie screened in many areas, and any film the MPAA would require to have a harsher rating would have zero possibility of release at ninety percent of the theaters in the country.
I don’t know whether Caligula was available at Border’s Bookstores but I know that Emanuelle in America was. There are many explicit titles available at Border, Best Buy, Fry’s, and more.
42nd Street’s most rotten grindhouse cinema is now commonly available at the big box stores.
And they don’t carry an “X” anymore, they are just released as “uncut and unrated”.
And Lars Von Treir is a big arthouse fav. He’ll probably see him movie in perpetual reruns on Bravo or IFC.