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Setting off for a Christmas Day booking and leaving behind a host of broken-hearted women, cabaret singer Marc Stephens (Laurent Lucas) gets stranded in a desolate forest. He encounters Boris searching for his dog, and with his help, finds a nearby hotel. The owner, Bartel, welcomes the company, having been on his own since his wife’s disappearance. But despite his plans to help fix Marc’s van, Bartel seems reluctant to let him go and turns him into a prisoner, dressing him in his ex-wife’s clothes. Furthermore, Marc becomes a victim of a series of humiliating and increasingly brutal rituals. If Christmas can be hell for most of us, for him it literally is. Then there are the equally disturbing villagers to deal with too, and not a woman amongst them. Marc’s ordeal has only just begun. Fabrice Du Weltz's Calvaire produces a deliciously Gothic nightmare that builds its tension with admirable skill.
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