The Horror Film The Calendar: Review and Trailer

Once is not custom … For once it is not a horror movie Anglo-Saxon who landed in movie theater the December 1, 2021 with The calendar, but one Franco-Belgian genre film. And it’s rare enough to be highlighted. Because, like lovers of kind know it, in France we are still quite cautious with the idea of ​​producing and financing horror films. The last big release of its kind is Titanium by Julia Ducournau, Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2021.

Made by the Belgian Patrick Ridremont, The calendar is only the second feature film from the director after Dean Man Talking in 2013. Patrick Ridremont works more as an actor than director. We could see it in particular in Rebels, Stingy! or the series The forest.

In The calendar, a dark story of Advent calendar deadly, Patrick Ridremont stages Eugenie Derouand (that we saw in the series Inside on France 2 and Paris Police 1900 on Canal +), Honorine Magnier – Rose’s interpreter in Research Section on TF1 -, Janis Abrikh and Clement Olivieri (seen in Paris is ours on Netflix). But also Cyril Garnier, Jean-Francois Garreaud, Laura Presgurvic and Isabelle Tanakil.

Synopsis :

Eva (Eugenie Derouand) has been paraplegic for three years. For her birthday, she receives as a gift a strange Advent calendar. But these are not the traditional sweets that she discovers every day, but more disturbing surprises, sometimes pleasant, often terrifying, and more and more bloody. This year, Christmas is going to be deadly!

The teaser :

Our review :

We were looking forward to discovering The calendar, a horror movie French-speaking, so few of them.

The pitch was pretty enticing – an evil advent calendar story – that could have come straight out of a Hollywood studio. Well-known actors of French fictions who pass, for once, on the big screen (Honorine Magnier of Research Section in blonde, Cyril Garnier of Tomorrow is ours or Jean-Francois Garreaud of The Crim ‘ and More beautiful life notably). If on paper, everything was there to tempt us, on the other hand, the result is far from our expectations and disappoints a little.

If the aspect supernatural and fantastic is present, the director has very little use of special effects to materialize it on the screen. A choice that we do not share. At times, the characters seem to have visions, but it is not clear whether they have taken hallucinogenic substances or if this happens during their sleep after taking sleeping pills. It’s a shame because there the movie loses us. The character of Cyril Garnier is too cartoonish. As for the rhythm of the movie, it is too slow.

Too bad, it’s not this time that a movie gender Francophone will do well. The intention is there, but the result does not follow.