Kind of a French take on a '70s backcountry slasher, which while not my favorite kind of horror movie, this is as good as any of them really. It's grotesque and macabre and at times absurd. Ultimately entertaining enough.

It's like a french version of "The Hills Have Eyes" - minus the grotesque facial features. The town this singer gets stuck in has a bunch of inbred dudes.

Creepy but not scary at all. I really did not enjoy this movie - the men weirdly dancing made no sense at all, as much of this debacle of a movie was senseless.

("Calvaire" / "The Ordeal" ) I enjoyed it.

Calvaire (The Ordeal). Unsympathetic, strangely perverse and deeply unsettling. Yet beautifully shot, thematically complex and diabolically humorous. How many films have pulled that off? A film that has stuck with me for 15 years and one that probably took as long to fully appreciate. Genuinely dreadful.

The French horror film Calvaire starts off promisingly enough – a broken down van on a remote country road in the middle of the night and a decrepit country inn shrouded in fog and menace. Thanks to some effective lighting and quirky performances, the tension builds steadily as it slowly becomes apparent that something is amiss. Things fall apart just past the halfway point as Calvaire becomes some sort of weird offspring of Misery and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Sadly, there are some unintentional laughs (dig the dancing in the bar, not to mention the pet ‘dog'!!) which is never a good thing in a movie that is supposed to scare the hell out of you.

bahahaha i like the storyline - it's super creepy & definitely had potential to be great - but the ACTING. LOL. i could hardly take it. & i get that there's obviously something wrong with that man - with ALL of those men, lol - but it felt like they were just being stupid the whole time; instead of trying to portray someone with issues. idk. it was just weird, man. maybe in the right mood i would've liked it, but apparently i was not in that mood today. lol.

Now this is a different kind of movie. It's a psychological horror with some dark comedic elements to it. It's a slow slow burn so be prepared for that, as things move at a snail's pace early on as the film establishes that Marc is in a weird situation and Mr. Barte isn't all there. The psychological horror comes from the fact that Mr. Barte takes Marc captive because he is psychologically messed up and pretends that Marc is his ex-wife (who left him after sleeping around with the villagers). Marc's "ordeal" gets worse and worse as an attempt to escape goes nowhere and he deteriorates due to the predicament he's in. It can be a tough watch at times if you empathize with Marc. If you're not one who generally empathizes with the victim in a horror movie, this film won't do that much for you (you aren't likely to find it disturbing and creepy). For a first geature length film, Du Wellz could've done a lot worse.

Plenty of moments keep it from being truly magnificent, but it packs plenty of strange and creepy moments to make it stand out from the rest of "crazy people horror" out there, as its horror is handled expertly and its pacing manages to keep the ambience mysterious and tense.

Perversely unsettling. A film that languishes with landscapes that most films dare to tread. I've heard & read the comparisons to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but these films are distant cousins. Disturbing.

Probably one of the strangest horror film I have ever seen with a blatant steal from the Texas chainsaw massacre in the middle which is probably the best bit!

i had read about this being a pretty disturbing frightening horror film, the set up is really good for sure, you just knew something bad was gonna happen, and the guy playing bartel did a good job, but the payoff was just so weak, and frankly short, the movie was only like 84 min, and over half is just the setup, not a whole lot is explained, and honestly it really wasnt that disturbing or brutal, dont waste your time its not worth it

5.9/10 This was a quite infuriating movie that was as well disturbing and crazy. The performances were good, specially Laurent Lucas, who portrayed the protagonist in its most devastating scenes with a lot of terror and realism. Overall, the movie was a tad strange and unsettling but there wasn't quite a concrete explanation nor a beginning and end. Not as good as I hoped it would be, but in disturbing levels it was good, but no quite a horror movie. ~January 31, 2015~

Frenchie self-indulgence, even for a suspense thriller.

There is more than an element of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre about this particularly the way the hapless victim is 'lead' to this Ordeal by a seemingly benign host and also in the dinner table scene when the camera goes berzerk and with its use of 'eyeball shot'. It does turn into one of those horror films that is more about shock and suffering than actually being scary, a balance on which Texas Chainsaw is yet to be matched. This is disappointing given the strong opening 45 minutes.

I loved this movie once the pivotal barroom scene hit--the level of insanity increased so dramatically that I had to hit pause to catch my breath. What starts as a traditional "Misery" style horror film, rapidly changes into the strangeness that only the French do this well. Tell me you love me Gloria!!!

Decent enough French horror where a performer is holed up in a small village where everyone is a few sarnies short of a picnic

Pretty good. If you're dying for a psychological horror movie you'll enjoy it. I can't believe this came out in 2004. it looks like 1987-ish to me.

I must be more careful with my choices, that's for sure !

Mesmo aproveitando referências várias de clássicos do género "Homem no Limite" ("Cães de Palha", "Deliverance", "Massacre no Texas"), "Calvaire" fica muito longe de se tornar também ele num filme marcante. Na melhor das hipóteses é uma colagem algo previsível feita com constatável empenho por parte do realizador e do elenco. Se a ideia era mostrar que a Bélgica pode ser um país assustador, isso também já sabíamos das notícias que passam na televisão.