Marc Stevens, a cabaret-style singer is supposed to perform at wedding in South of France during Christmas week. But his van breaks down and leaves him stranded deep into the woods. He finds a small village nearby and seeks help from Paul Bartel, a man who runs the local inn and who promises to help fix Marc's van. But to Marc's great horror, Bartel's not the nice kind of man he first seemed to be.
This is truly a horrifying movie that, when watched it the first time, made me think of Deliverance. Although, I think that Calvaire is a more brutal type of flick and definitely feels more realistic than Deliverance did. And that's were the genuine horror comes in.
I'm used to watching everything when it comes to horror, but this movie actually made me feel sick for real. Think of the rape scene in Irreversible. This movie has that same kind of realistic feel to it, and while it sure gets your full attention, it's still very repulsing to watch at times.
When watching the movie, I sat with the remote control in my hand, ready to turn the flick off during the whole running time, but never actually did. Exactly the same thing happened when watching Irreversible, a movie I ended up liking. With this flick I'm not really sure were I actually stand. While the gruesome events that occur in the movie makes it interesting and captivating, it's still a pain to watch and leaves you feeling quite bad when the credits starts to roll.
 
So was is it that's makes Calvaire so horrible? Well, first off it's the overall realistic feeling that it has to it. At times it doesn't really feels like you're watching a movie but actually something taking place for real as it sometimes looks more like a documentary. The movie's very bizarre and the horror is more psychological than graphic.
This guy Marc hasen't really done anything wrong. He just ended up at a small village full of nut-jobs, and trusts a man that turns out to be a total psycho. He burns Marc's van, locks him up, makes him wear his wife’s old dress, cut of his hair etc. He's trapped in a village of inbred freaks and realizes that no one's gonna come to his aid, but instead turn against him. The word terror comes to mind and this truly is terror with a big T.
I can't say that Calvaire is a great movie, because it's not. But it's very different, bizarre, disturbing and while it will please some, it will definitely disgust a lot of viewers too. Give it a try and see if you can make it all the way through.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: The Ordeal
MOVIE YEAR: 2004
DIRECTOR: Fabrice Du Welz
WRITING CREDITS: Fabrice Du Welz, Romain Protat
GENRE: Horror, Drama
CAST: Laurent Lucas, Jackie Berroyer, Philippe Nahon
COUNTRY: Belgium, France, Luxembourg
RUNTIME: 94 min
RATING: 5/10
Calvaire Website/IMDB Click here
Calvaire Trailer Click here
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