Film Review
Alexandre Aja's
Haute tension (2003) showed the
world that a French filmmaker could deliver a survival horror film that
is every bit as gripping and stylish as anything made by his American
counterparts, but it has one crippling flaw: it is not remotely
funny. For his debut feature, the budding Belgian film director
Fabrice Du Welz avoided making this fatal error and gave unsuspecting
cinema audiences something far more satisfying and wholesome: a slick,
blood-curdling horror film that makes you roll about on the floor
in hysterics (well, almost).
Calvaire
shows its influences with an almost shameless lack of modesty,
Tobe Hooper's
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(1974) being the classic horror film it most obviously draws on, but it
gets away with this by being so outrageously off-the-wall and laughably
sick.
Most of the film is a well-structured two-hander in which a dull
musician from the city becomes ensnared and mercilessly tormented by
the weirdest of country bumpkins who mistakes him for the reincarnation
of his long-departed wife. Jackie Berroyer manages to be both
hilarious and terrifying as the latter, whilst Laurent Lucas proves to
be an effective casting choice for the role of the victim we love to
see put through Hell. Right from the off, it is Berroyer's
Pinteresque innkeeper who monopolises our sympathies, and we not only
relish the humiliations and cruelties he subjects Lucas's character to
(which include being forced into a tight floral dress and a friendly
spot of crucifixion), we positively revel in them.
Calvaire is a film that reminds us
that, no matter how we may pretend otherwise, there's a vicious little
sadist in each and every one of us. (Why else would anyone want
to watch the
Jeremy Kyle Show?)
The plot may not be particularly original - it is virtually a replay of
Philippe Haïm's marvellously insane black comedy
Barracuda
(1997) - but that hardly matters if, like Du Welz, you come at it from
a completely new angle and have a distinct lack of self-restraint and
good taste. Clearly far more interested in style than substance,
Du Welz attacks his film with a kind of manic glee, raiding just about
every American horror film made since the mid-1970s as he does
so. The film gets dizzyingly bizarre in places, with angrily
whining pigs and zombie-like villagers (all male) adding to the general
sense of disarray and hysteria. One of the most stylish and
deranged French-language horror films ever,
Calvaire ultimately succeeds
because at no point does it take itself too seriously. A
deliriously unhinged fantasy which looks suspiciously like a Brothers
Grimm fairy tale that has got horribly out of control, it deserves a
place in any horror film enthusiast's collection.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Marc Stevens is an itinerant singer who performs mainly for retirement
homes. After an engagement at a hospice is cancelled, his car
breaks down in the middle of nowhere. A stranger appears and
takes him to an inn run by Monsieur Bartel. Since his wife Gloria
left him, the latter has been in an unbalanced state of mind. To
Marc's surprise, Bartel is convinced that he is the reincarnation of
his wife. Marc's surprise turns to horror when his host imprisons
him and dresses him up in his wife's clothes...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.