A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The movie is slow paced and there is no a single moment where the movie manages to be terrifying. The movie introduces a sexual atmosphere from the beginning and builds upon it a sickening story and atmosphere. Although the movie is not terrifying it manages rather well to be disturbing and sick. The movie revolves around a singer travelling through the woods and suffering a car breakdown in a sparsely population region isolated from the world. Luckily he manages to find some lodgings where he can rest and get his car repaired. The movie portrays the events that unfold rather well. I would give the movie a skip if I was looking for something scary but the movie will fit right in if you are looking for something sickening.

I sat down to write a review for this film as part of a personal project to record and document my opinions of the films I watched... but to be quite honest, I'm not too sure where to begin, how to continue or when to stop... This movie probably set out to cause feelings of disturbing unpleasantness and awkward embarrassment in its audience. Everything is strange and weird from the very first scenes where the artist puts on make-up, and then when his "relationships" with the women who appeared for a short time were described. At a certain point the movie became not less than surreal, and not in a very good way.My taste in cinema and my understanding of it might prove to be a little too shallow and inadequate to enjoy such films, but I think I wouldn't be speaking for myself alone if I said that I simply failed to enjoy this one.The grotesque absurdity borderlines the sick, which I guess was deliberate in order to portray the mental condition of the area's inhabitants. I was really frustrated with the main actor's performance. His singing isn't all that professional and impressive (again, might be deliberate, as he's not exactly successful in his trade). His crying scenes are almost pathetic, he appears to be laughing and sounds very much like the squeals of the pig in the movie (again, that too might be deliberate). The deranged inhabitants, however, showed some very good acting in my opinion, and made the audience feel an uneasy pity followed by a disturbing fear, just as they would feel encountering such psychotics in real life.The best part by far was the piano scene at the local tavern. The music was macabre and artistic, and the dancing seemed like it was part of someone's bad dream.As you can very well see, I'm not too sure what to make of most of the features and elements of this film. I believe the Horror tag to be wrong, but I'm not sure what tag would be right... Stephen King's "Misery' meets "Deliverance" was what I was going to say, maybe some "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" as a review I've read here suggested.All in all - the movie is very artistic and probably has many layers I've failed to uncover. Perhaps that's why I didn't really enjoy it... I can't in good conscience recommend that you watch it, or that you not watch it. This is the kind of film one has to watch in order to know if it suited them or not. Me, personally, it did not.

Calvaire is one of the leading horror films of the last 15 years, which have exploded (much in the way J-horror did mid-90s) into the minds of horror buffs all over the world. Not only is Calvaire a strange, unnerving, and often amusing experience, it is also of great interest to those well versed in the horror genre.French acting talent doesn't come much better than Laurant Lucas at the moment, and he convincingly gets lost in his characters journey. Phillipe Nahon's presence is always felt, despite limited screen time. Throw in Brigitte Lahaie, references to Deliverance, The Wicker Man, Don;t Look Now, Polanski, outstanding cinematography (Benoit Debie), and of course The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (which this film closely resembles), and Calvaire can be seen as one of finest examples of modern horror available.Enjoy your descent into hell.

For those that think they like dark movies, stay away. Unless a proved cinematic dementophile, this movie will likely remove your sense of sangfroid for some time. This incredible Belgian flick is akin to a warped Passion of the Christ. A slow start for sure, that it takes its time into building up its climax is a gift to the senses. The acting was solid, the direction superb. It was the work of the camera, though, that takes this flick to the next level. With washed our color, it takes the natural beauty of nature and turns it against us, dizzying in its great expanses, threatening to swallow up humanity. The action itself swirls with nauseating brutality, leaving the viewer aghast, emotionally drained, and bereft of sense. Yep.Evil Eye Reviews