Bloody Disgusting has learned this afternoon that Yellow Veil Pictures have acquired all distribution rights in North America for the HD remaster of Fabrice du Welz’s 2004 Belgian horror movie Calvaire. Released at the height of the New French Extremity movement, Calvaire follows a traveling entertainer who falls victim to a dangerously unhinged innkeeper determined to keep him captive. The U.S. premiere of the remaster will take place next month as part of the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.
As du Welz’s first feature, Calvaire would go on to become the first part of his thematic Ardennes Trilogy (alongside 2014’s Alleluia and 2019’s Adoration) and immediately define the young director as a voice to watch in Belgium. Calvaire takes its cues not only from the contemporary extreme cinema of France and Belgium, but also from iconic works like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to create a poetically brutal study of human nature.
The film stars Laurent Lucas, Jackie Berroyer, Philippe Nahon, and Brigitte Lahaie, and is produced by Vincent Tavier, Eddy Géradon-Luyckx, and Michael Gentile.
Yellow Veil Pictures will premiere the HD remaster in cinemas in early 2023, followed shortly after by releases on digital and home video.
Hugues Barbier, Yellow Veil Pictures co-founder, said in statement on the new title acquisition, “Being able to bring back to the audience such an iconic film in its remastered form is invaluable. Fabrice du Welz and his DP Benoit Debie worked on a new grading that will have fans rediscovering the film and seeing it in a whole new light, and will surely bring the discussion back on du Welz’s first feature as a prominent film in the New French Extremity canon.”
Fabrice du Welz added, “Calvaire, my first film, has been remastered. Lightly. We went back to the original negative of the film. I’m ecstatic to share it with you. Seventeen years later, Calvaire is still alive, and it’s a great joy.”