Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Alleluia Blu-ray Movie Review

Un homme et une femme.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 16, 2015

Lots of folks get into the Halloween spirit by watching traditional horror outings, including everything from hoary old classics like Dracula and Frankenstein to more contemporary chillers like The Babadook or Insidious. Typical Halloween fare tends to have elements like monsters or supernatural phenomena creating the angst, though there are of course “blood ‘n’ guts” fans who tend to choose entries like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Friday the 13th to satiate their Halloween viewing needs. For those wanting a perhaps at least slightly different type of horror film for the season, there’s copious gore in Alleluia, and a case could be made that there are both monsters (albeit of the human variety) and a supernatural element, at least if one believes in the enigmatic power of love to control someone’s decisions. A kinda sorta remake of The Honeymoon Killers, albeit transported to our contemporary online era and away from the United States and into France. Martha Beck, the overweight, unhappy nurse at the center of The Honeymoon Killers’ tale of obsessive love gone awry, is transformed in Alleluia into Gloria (Lola Dueñas), a homely mortuary worker who yearns to find Mr. Right. Online dating, the refuge of many a scoundrel, ultimately leads Gloria to the seemingly perfect Michel (Laurent Lucas), a toothy guy who the audience already knows may not have the purest motives.

There’s kind of an interesting “cheat” at play in Alleluia, where co-writer and director Fabrice Du Welz initially seems to be suggesting that Michel is an obsessive, courtesy of an early scene which details his quasi-religious ceremony presaging his first date with Gloria. While patently bizarre, the true nature of that ceremony doesn’t become clear until Michel quite easily seduces Gloria, beds her, asks for some money, and then disappears. Here the “cheat” is turned on its head, for it soon becomes clear that it’s Gloria who is the true obsessive, and it’s just as obvious that Gloria is seriously obsessed with Michel.

Since both The Honeymoon Killers and Alleluia are based on the real life duo of Raymond Fernandez and the aforementioned Martha Beck, a case that became internationally infamous after the lurid details of their succession of conquests and killings became public, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Alleluia starts to chart the course of the relationship between this film’s Michel and Gloria as it, too, turns toward homicide. This version perhaps offers Gloria as more of a catalyst for the actual carnage than she’s shown as being in The Honeymoon Killers, and in fact in a couple of gruesome scenes, Du Welz goes for the gusto in an almost Grand Guignol fashion with regard to his focal female character.

The film has a kind of interesting structure, divided into four “chapters” that offer titles referring to both Gloria and then three subsequent “victims” of Michel’s subterfuges, and, ultimately, Gloria’s rage. Alleluia takes an emotionally devastating tour through the wounded lives of so-called “lonely hearts”, starting of course with Gloria herself, whose own psychological issues have metastasized into something patently evil. In fact, one of the almost pitch black comedic aspects to the film is how Gloria’s behavior absolutely stuns Michel, a guy who after makes his “living” by cheating people.

There’s a deceptively pedestrian quality to the early going in Alleluia, despite florid little touches like that odd religious ceremony Michel is seen performing. That probably only makes the outbreak of violence all the more shocking, and the film doesn’t shirk from the grotesque, while also perhaps wallowing in some questionable tone by ostensibly humorously exploiting Gloria’s expertise as a mortuary worker.

Almost inescapably creepy by the time it closes, Alleluia is strong on mood and especially strong on performances. Its narrative hurdles are occasionally problematic, but this putative “true life” story certainly plays stranger than fiction almost all of the time.

Alleluia Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Alleluia is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Music Box Films and Doppelgänger Releasing with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Alleluia was shot on Super 16, something du Welz evidently intentionally chose to up the grittier aspects of the story, and in fact if there's one word some viewers will use to describe this transfer, it's gritty. This is an at times extremely grainy presentation that flirts with noise on more than one occasion (see screenshot 17) and which, due to other tweaks made to the imagery in post, often sucks quite a bit of detail out of the image (see screenshot 5). In reasonably bright environments and in more or less normal lighting conditions, detail pops decently if not overwhelmingly, and the palette looks fresh. Alleluia was lensed by cinematographer Manuel Dacosse, who made the neo- giallo Amer's visual aesthetic so memorable, and he once again plays here with washes of color and chiaroscuro lighting that will often mask players' faces in shadow.

Alleluia Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Alleluia lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track has bursts of frenetic energy, including some kind of manic musical moments that offer good immersion. A lot of the film, however, plays out in quieter, more intimate (even hushed) dialogue sequences, something that doesn't provide much opportunity for "wow" sonics. Fidelity is nonetheless excellent and dynamic range surprisingly wide.

Alleluia Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary is by director Fabrice Du Welz, who confesses right off the bat that his English isn't very good. Occasional stumbles make it just a little hard to understand him at times, but he offers a lot of production data and some anecdotes about the shoot which are quite interesting.


• A Wonderful Love: A Short Film by Fabrice Du Welz (1080p; 22:33)


• Home Cinéma Episode with Fabrice Du Welz (1080p; 27:49) is a fun tag along with the director.


• Shooting Alleluia (1080p; 10:33) offers some good behind the scenes footage and interviews.


• Cut Scenes (1080p; 16:57)


• Setting the Scene (1080i; 2:36) focuses on production designer Manu de Meulemeester.


• Interviews with the Actors features:

  Lola Dueñas (1080i; 3:58)

  Laurent Lucas (1080i; 4:58)

  Helena Noguerra (1080p; 6:29)

• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:59)

Alleluia Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Alleluia builds its tension slowly but surely, depicting Gloria's frightening obsession with an almost clinical detachment. That only gives the film more force when things tip over into madness and murder, at which point the film tends to become tonally more unbalanced, perhaps an appropriate reflection of its focal duo's psychological unraveling. The film is quite stylish, though those wanting impeccable sharpness and clarity will be thrown for a loop by this film's small format grittiness. Supplemental features are quite winning, and for those looking for a different kind of Halloween "treat", Alleluia comes Recommended.