I first saw this in the early 2k on a dvd which I own.

Revisited it recently.

The plot - On a Christmas eve, a singer's van breaks down in a deserted and marshy region. The singer takes refuge in an inn run by a hospitable but creepy innkeeper who became psychologically upset with the villagers after his wife left him. The innkeeper offers to repair the singer's van as a token of brotherhood between professional entertainers.

The next morning when the singer tells the innkeeper that he is going for a walk, the innkeeper suddenly becomes paranoid and aggressive, warning the singer not to go into the nearby village.

The movie has tons of atmosphere but is very claustrophobic, surrealistic n horrifying at times.

The bar scene where outta blue the people starts dancing with one another is downright creepy.

The backwoods village without a single female character and not a single sane male character is an epitome of eeriness.

Travelling cabaret singer Marc Stevens (Laurent Lucas) suffers engine trouble, breaking down in the woods during a rain-storm, but manages to find shelter at a nearby inn. Unfortunately, the owner of the establishment, Bartel (Jackie Berroyer),is completely crazy and, believing that the singer is his estranged wife, uses any means necessary to prevent his guest from leaving.

I'd seen Calvaire (AKA The Ordeal) mentioned on a few 'most disturbing movies' lists, and comparisons to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Misery, Deliverance, Straw Dogs only furthered my curiosity. Having just finished watching the film, I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed.

Once writer/director Fabrice Du Welz has established his film's unconventional premise, it seems as though he doesn't know what to do next, other than be weird for weird's sake. The plot certainly displays very little in the way of real development: Marc Stevens is subjected to humiliation, escapes, is caught again, then subjected to more humiliation, before escaping again. The story goes nowhere, ending abruptly without resolution, while the persistent, darkly humorous tone only serves to dilute any real horror that the situation might have otherwise had.

As a fan of warped cinema, I didn't find Calvaire a total waste of time—any film with a random spot of bestiality and an impromptu freakish dance scene isn't totally worthless in my eyes—but it was far from the gruelling ordeal I had expected.

CALVAIRE, aka THE ORDEAL, is a French film whose sole emphasis is on the brutal treatment suffered by the protagonist at the hands of various countryside-dwelling oddballs, the French equivalent of rednecks. It's a story of oppression and degradation that just so happens to be one of the most unpleasant films I've seen in a long time; not because it's particularly graphic, because it isn't, but because it just dwells on miserable, unpleasant characters doing even more miserable things.

Be warned, this is a film that sets out to shock, and gets away with it by hiding under an 'arthouse' tag. Bestiality and male rape play a strong part, along with the exploitation of mental illness and the total subjugation of the human spirit. There are touches of mystery and intrigue in the first half, but the plot less second half piles on the misery and becomes gruelling for all the wrong reasons. There is no ending.

The two most interesting things about CALVAIRE are a cameo role for French scream queen Brigitte Lahaie (starlet of many a Jean Rollin film, back in the day) and a surreal sequence in which bar patrons dance to a piece of appalling piano music. Other than that, it's a total dud.