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Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

best movie i've ever seen.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

I'm of two minds about this movie. No, three.One: I don't like claustrophobic horror movies where things just get worse and worse. 3/10 for taste.Two: This was a well-crafted movie that, refreshingly, relied on characterization rather than special effects. The lack of music added to the feeling of claustrophobia. 8/10.Three: It was a delightful pastiche of many other movies, including Misery, Deliverance, Straw Dogs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Un Soir, Un Train, etc. I'm sure reviewers more familiar with European movies than I could name quite a few more. 10/10 for erudition.Avg: 7/10.

Reading the reviews, I expected a lot of brutal stuff, a real French extremity shocker. I remember watching Inside and Martyrs and sitting dazed after witnessing all the carnage. So what went wrong here? I should have got the clue when I saw that he was also the director of another movie that I dislike greatly, Vinyan. But I ignored all that looking at the reviews. There are 3 things that may be expected in an enjoyable horror/exploitation movie. First, large amounts of gore and nudity. Remember we are living in the Saw and Hostel age. Nothing less than absolute carnage will satisfy viewers. This movie has very minimal violence. Whatever disgusting things are there are all implied. That should normally be good right? Well maybe if you are talking about an atmospheric creepy horror film. But not when you are making a movie where the disgusting things are the center. Then there is no other way, you need to go all the way. This movie doesn't even meet that expectation halfway through. Hell John waters was making shocking stuff 30 years ago. This movie doesn't raise the bar even a little bit.Then there is another aspect that you might expect. Atmosphere. a creepy horror film which starts slowly and then explodes. Nothing like that. They don't even try to creep you out. The director never intended to make an atmospheric horror film. He just wanted to make a long(well it feels long) boring mess and try to present himself as an intellectual who challenges the status quo. Sort of like Bunuel, only he doesn't have half that talent. Then maybe at least entertainment. Maybe a fun ride without much violence or atmosphere. Something like, those Hollywood fun movies where you just sit back and enjoy. Here I was struggling to keep my eyes open with the non events going on. I kept expecting something that could redeem the movie, a twist, a last act of violence, something. I got nothing. At least Vinyan had that, a last scene which may have confounded viewers but which seemed passionate. Here there was a non ending and then it switches to the credits. Gore lovers would hate the movie of course. Depravity lovers....well any rape scene, anything is cut short immediately. Even the much hyped pig shagging thing ended so quickly with nothing shown (of course here you can't blame the film makers because what can they really do?). The crucifixion scene was also very short. That pretty much covers most of what happens in the movie. Unless you include the constant whining of the old men and the whining of the main character. I pretty much described the whole movie, so no need to worry about what is left in the movie. Pretty much my least favourite movie of the French horror wave.2/10

If I were going to put a number on it, I'd give it a point or two lower rating than High Tension, Frontier(s), Inside, and all those other movies people tend to lump together. The overall tone and quality of film-making is similar to the above titles, but it doesn't have the gore or the body count. There's just one character whose bad luck has to keep us entertained for the whole running time, and prior to the climax, there just isn't much going on. Like those films, there's also a paper- thin hint of artistic insight, but it's nothing brilliant and isn't enough to justify watching the film.That said, there's three or four scenes that are completely off the wall and that make the film worth watching. I won't spoil them, because much of the thrill that this movie offered for me was in the sincere "lol wut" it pulled out of me at several points, and if you're going to enjoy the film, you're going to enjoy it for the shocking absurdity of these precious few scenes. These scenes are shocking in the way a David Lynch movie is shocking to someone who's never seen a David Lynch movie. They're just so bizarre.On the whole, it's not great, but if you're reading this review, you've probably already watched all the great horror films. So, give it a shot, and you probably won't be disappointed.

This is part of the recent wave of French extremity where young filmmakers of some ambition are not content with exploitation as were being done in the 70's but have to have some kind of layer in the back that justifies reworking the experience. Martyrs aimed for some kind of revelation for the viewer in the endurance of watching extremity. Haute Tension had its own needless twist for the sake of having one. Gaspar Noe keeps busy tweaking our end of navigating his juvenile imagination.But because these filmmakers are more adept at visceral response than intelligent layering, most of these layers come across as pretentious and solely for the sake of adding 'weight'.Here we have Straw Dogs reworked to be about a man as the perverse object of backwoods desire. The added layer? A Jesus parable thrown in the back where our man ascends his own Calvary Hill of degradation.The horror is basic and attempts some bargain-basement surrealism. The layer is once more pretentious and useless.