Bloody Disgusting has learned this afternoon that the HD remaster of Fabrice du Welz’s 2004 Belgian horror movie Calvaire will be re-released in theaters February 24 followed by VOD and a limited edition Blu-ray release this spring from Yellow Veil Pictures.

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. 

Oscar-winning director Guillermo Del Toro called Calvaire “a lucid nightmare,” further describing it as “a dark absurdist descent into hell… Calvaire’s meditation on identity, possession, and cruelty remains horribly vivid.”

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.

Fabrice du Welz said: “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.”