You cannot help but think of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre during a shot in Calvaire where the camera spins across the leering, giggling faces of a twisted inbred family and their blood-covered, shrieking victim, and you really cannot help but think of it when we cut to an extreme close-up of the victim’s eye darting nervously back and forth.
We’ve seen Fabrice Du Welz’s film before, where an innocent (here Laurent Lucas’s Marc Stevens) has his car break down in the middle of nowhere. He’s taken in by an eccentric innkeeper (Jackie Berroyer), and for a while Calvaire is an intriguingly freakish character study of an older man falling in love with a younger man, believing him to be his dead wife.
But insinuating dialogue eventually gives way to a sadistic (and familiar) torture tale. After the innkeeper cuts Marc’s hair and makes him wear a musty old dress, a series of beatings and chases through the woods ensue. Just about the only twist that the film serves up is that an entire township of creepy-looking old men (there are no women here) all seem to believe that this young man is the physical embodiment of the innkeeper’s wife, and when their sexual heat gets turned up, this gathering of gun-toting hicks decide they all want a piece of the action.
While Du Welz’s feature debut can’t pass itself off as an art-house horror about the nature of love among the cannibals, it sometimes has a sick sexual frisson that resonates. Too bad that a bunch of other recent movies have already trodden down this path, and more successfully.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
