Calvaire (aka: The Ordeal) (Region-1) (DVD) - Korean Movie DVD, Japanese Movie, Chinese Video, Taiwan Video, Tagalog DVD

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Calvaire (aka: The Ordeal) (Region-1) (DVD)

Starring: Jackie Berroyer, Philippe Nahon, Laurent Lucas

Director: Fabrice du Welz

Studio: Palm Pictures / Visual Entertainment (US)

Rating: NR

Genre: Horror

Sku #

22335

List Price

$19.98

Our Price

$17.95

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Product Detail

Audio Format: DD 2.0

Video Format: Widescreen 1.85:1 (Anamorphic)

Languages: French

Subtitles: English

Region Code: 1

Year Made: 2004

Running Time: 98

Small-time singer/entertainer Marc Stevens departs on a tour of the north of Belgium. But he becomes lost and his van breaks down on a back road. He seeks shelter at the nearby inn run by Paul Bartel. Bartel promises to fix the van but instead Marc discovers him sabotaging it. Bartel knocks him out. When Marc comes around, he finds that Bartel has tied him up and placed him in a dress. Bartel insists that Marc is his wife Gloria and keeps him prisoner so that they can be back together again.

This (principally) Belgian made thriller is a highly effective venture into the Backwoods Brutality genre as popularized by 1970s films like Deliverance (1972), The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). This is a genre that has undergone somewhat of a revival of late with the likes of House of 1000 Corpses (2003), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Wrong Turn (2003), House of Wax (2005) and Wolf Creek (2005). But while these American ventures are films that merely look back and copy what Texas Chain Saw set up, The Ordeal is a work of impressive originality.

It's a film that starts rather disarmingly. Director Fabrice du Welz has a sardonic eye for off-centre characters - Laurent Lucas and his tatty cabaret act; the elderly lady (Gigi Coursigni) who takes his eye contact during the performance as a sexual overture; the girlfriend?/one-night stand? (played by French X-rated actress Brigitte Lahaie) longingly looking on as he drives off; the seemingly intellectually handicapped Jean-Luc Couchard who obsessively wanders the woods looking for his missing dog; and especially Jackie Berroyer's sublimely funny performance as the roly-poly unthreatening innkeeper, who insists on telling jokes and hearing Lucas sing songs.

These characters and early scenes keep the audience amused. Even a scene where Jackie Berroyer breaks into Lucas's van and steals his cellphone and some rather personal photos is one that has the audience laughing rather than concerned. (For some reason, the film names Berroyer's character Paul Bartel, possibly in homage to the American director/actor Paul Bartel, who after all made the cult classic black comedy Eating Raoul (1982) about a couple luring people to their apartment and then killing them).

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