Product Description

In the tradition of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PSYCHO and DELIVERANCE comes this chilling Belgian horror that pushes the limits of shock filmmaking. Director and co-writer Fabrice Du Welz masterfully evokes a sense of deeply disturbing terror as Marc Stevens world goes profoundly and utterly wrong. When his car breaks down in the middle of the isolated backcountry he s forced to seek refuge in a rural inn. Marc is taken in by Bartel a lonely and psychologically fragile innkeeper who promises to help. But when Marc catches him dismantling his car he realizes that the innkeeper has other plans for him sadistic plans that will push him to the bounds of human pain and suffering.System Requirements:Run Time: 98 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR UPC: 660200312022 Manufacturer No: PALM3120

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34699 in DVD
• Brand: UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP DISTRIBUTION
• Released on: 2006-10-03
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 88 minutes

Amazon.com
A Belgian horror film with a stylish if slightly self-conscious take on all sorts of overlapping nightmares from the likes of Deliverance, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Psycho, Calvaire: The Ordeal is the strange story of a traveling musician, Marc (Laurent Lucas), whose van breaks down on a country road. Running across an inn owned by Bartel (Jackie Berroyer), Marc feels at ease until a walk through a nearby village reveals the town’s taste in bestiality, and Bartel later indicates he has unwholesome designs on his guest. Terrifying, depraved stuff follows, capped by a gruesome climax that gives Tobe Hooper a run for his money. The debut feature of director Fabrice du Welz, Calvaire is enormously intense if calculating in its depiction of pure chaos. --Tom Keogh

FANGORIA
"An unsettling showcase for some truly disturbed behavior."

The Guardian UK
"A brilliant black comic nightmare. A gripping, utterly involving, horribly funny movie."

Customer Reviews

it was different....
i liked it but i have to say it was slow especially at the end. i was expecting some sort of more of a climax and didn't get anything of the sort. what i really enjoyed was the twisted character of Bartel (the progression of Bartel went from just being sort of an odd bird to truely twisted was nice) and the actor did a great job. could have done without the little scene of beastiality. again i don't want to say too much since some people may not have seen it and i don't want to spoil it for anyone. it is worth a viewing but i wouldn't compare it to anything like hostel or the texas chainsaw massacre since those have a more horror/action oriented feel to them.

Disturbing, but two plot points REALLY bug me
I did enjoy this film, found two scenes absolutely brilliant (the dance scene, and the overhead shot of the mayhem going on the cottage near the end), and was left haunted by the ending (which is ambiguous but - SPOILER ALERT!!!!! - I think it's implied that Marc is wandering the woods insane).

However, I found two important plot points to be completely unbelievable and in fact extremely irritating. They are:

(A) A car battery is heavy. If a weak, old man is standing in front of you trying to lift a car battery high enough to hit you in the head with it, you can EASILY avoid it. This is precisely why the actual battery-to-head contact is not shown on-camera. Because it would look ridiculous.

(B) Marc is shown to be a normal human being. Why does he IMMEDIATELY revert to a simpering, powerless child the second he is hit with a car battery and tied up? All he does the rest of the movie is lie around passively and cry! I'm not saying it doesn't HURT to get hit in the head by a car battery, and perhaps what I'm missing is that maybe the injury scrambled his brain so much that he can't think clearly enough to fight back against his oppresser. But man - to see him go from normal man to impotent crybaby that quickly was a bit unexpected.

Still, if you are interested in cinematic depictions of deranged minds, you must see Calvaire. Every single person in the film is deranged!

a true shocker without all the gore
This is not a movie for gore-hounds; in fact, the camera shies away from most of the violence. Instead, this film resonates in more creepy and psychological ways. There are scenes that will stay with you and they are not graphically violent but deeply violent all the same. The extremely disturbing dancing scene of the villagers and the pig squeals still haunt me.

As already noted, it is a tale about all the things that can go wrong once you leave your own protected environment. There is a reason why the backwoods are so scary (shades of Deliverance, French style). This movie is scary and the characters are among the creepiest. Bartel, the inn keeper, and the villagers are a freak show! Certain scenes were hard to watch. The cinematography was breathtaking and eerie all at once. Other scenes are left to the viewers imagination which can make things all the more chilling.

As a viewer I was dying to know about the back drop of this story and the extras on this dvd did not help me. Obviously, there are no females in this remote village. How did this come to pass? Were the men a little off to begin with? or were they driven to this primeval state by the lack of women? This factor is what drives The Ordeal of Marc Stevens. Why Bartel would have stayed with his wife in the first place? It becomes clearer when Bartel confides that the villagers were not like him and Mr. Stevens. While this warns Mr. Stevens away from the villagers it also, we later discover, makes a very fine distinction between degrees of crazy. Very interesting movie.

Some believe this movie is about zombies but I would disagree. I think it's really a movie arguing the natural state of man. According to the great French philosophy Rousseau, the progression of the sciences and arts has caused the corruption of virtue and morality in society but here, the consequences of Rousseau's "Social Contract" which recommended the return to nature and the whole "Naturalism" movement are horrific. The religious overtones (the whole nailing to the cross bit and following baser instincts leads to bad things) and shades of Lord of the Flies (what is the basic nature of man?) and plenty of other references all add up to a fascinating film not to be missed. Definitely a film to own rather then rent.