Stranded somewhere in the Ardennes after his van breaks down, Marc Stevens (Laurent Lucas - Harry He's Here To Help), a traveling cabaret singer, is taken in by a kindly inn keeper who offers to fix his van and give him shelter for the night.

But the motivation for the inn-keeper's kind actions soon changes from altruism to a fervent desire to prevent his new guest from ever leaving. The thing is Marc reminds the lonely inn-keeper of his long-lost wife. Before Marc knows it, his van is sabotaged and he is stranded. But this is only the start of his ordeal and what follows has to be seen to be believed...

The Ordeal (aka Calvaire) delivers a terrifying and darkly comic tale of obsession, kidnap, and borderline psychosis that brings to mind films such as Deliverance, Straw Dogs and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but that has a continental flavour very much its own.