Stéphane Audran, Jean Yanne, Roger Rudel, Mario Beccaria, Antonio Passalia ...( see more  see more... ) , William Guerault

An independent young schoolteacher forms a relationship with the friendly local butcher, whom she slowly begins to suspect is the sadistic serial-killer terrorizing their rural French province.

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82% liked it

1,563 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 33 min.

Directed by: Claude Chabrol

Release Date: January 1, 1971

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DVD Release Date: March 25, 2003

Stats: 84 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (84)


  • May 11, 2008
    a beautiful quiet thriller, simply amazing. every bit as good as hitchcock; very nearly perfect! most romantic serial killer film i've seen lol
  • April 30, 2008
    "Le Boucher" is more of a study in passive complicity or associative guilt than a murder-mystery, but it's still a difficult movie to write about without spoiling the plot for newcomers, so I'm going to sidestep the problem. It reminds me of a tragic variation on "La Belle et la ...( read more)Bête", in which Belle is too romantically jaded and too much the mistress of her own desires - i.e. she is not innocent enough - to save the helpless Beast from his uncontrollable lust for blood. In the most telling scene of all, schoolmistress Mademoiselle Hélène (Stéphane Audran) and her pupils visit some cave paintings by Cro-Magnon man. The teacher asks, "Do you know what desires are called when they rise above the savage state? Aspirations." The irony is that Belle condemns the Beast to his savage limbo by being completely unresponsive to his tender advances, his aspirations. While the film undoubtedly owes a debt to Hitchcock, Chabrol's beautifully observed provincial French setting completely surpasses the other's invariably artificial backdrops. Pierre Jansen's score is wonderfully creepy and Stéphane Audran and Jean Yanne are magnificent. A quietly perfect little masterpiece. "Mademoiselle Hélène! Mademoiselle Hélène!"
  • June 24, 2007
    More of a thriller than a true horror genre classic but the scary moments are better that most of the slasher films which have followed.
  • August 30, 2009
    Um bom suspense, faz jus à proposta.
  • June 4, 2009
    must be cult.....nice
  • March 7, 2009
    The discordant opening music of Le Boucher accompanies a series of curious limestone cave formations, and serves as a harbinger for the tragic events which are to unfold in this idyllic French countryside. Helene (Stephane Audran) is a beautiful, sophisticated school headmistress...( read more) who moved to the region after a failed relationship. Popaul (Jean Yanne) has recently returned to his hometown after serving 15 years in the French army to assume responsibilities for his late father's butcher shop. During the wedding of Helene's colleague, Leon Hamel (Mario Beccara), Helene and Popaul form an immediate bond, fueled in part by alcohol, but also by mutual loneliness. Most of their free time is spent together: having dinner, going to the movies, hunting for mushrooms. They are both emotionally scarred: Helene, abandoned by her former lover, and Popaul, abused by his cruel father and a witness to the atrocities of war. As Popaul struggles to bury his troubled past, Helene also suppresses her pain by becoming emotionally withdrawn, unwilling to invest in a romantic relationship. Meanwhile, two savage murders are committed: the first, at the neighboring town of St. Albert; the second, by a cave at the outskirts of town. As the specter of death hovers ever closer to their quaint small town, can Helene and Popaul break free from their subconscious confines and find love and companionship in each other? Or will the killer surface within the community, threatening to destroy the fragile relationship between these two fractured souls?

    Claude Chabrol crafts a taut and poignant tale of emotional damage in Le Boucher. Symbolically, the relational distance between Helene and Popaul is suggested through windows (as in Kieslowski's Red): Helene looks out from her studio above the school after their first encounter, Popaul looks into Helene's classroom, delivering a fresh cut of veal from the butcher shop, Popaul peers through the window of an unlit room in search of Helene. Furthermore, Popaul's preference for a lowered, student's chair in the studio also reflects Helene's unattainability for him, as he shyly looks up to see her face, trying to find connection in her polite countenance. Le Boucher is a subtly haunting portrait of people who are incapable of exorcising their own private demons - inflicting emotional violence behind a facade of civility - and, in the process, destroy themselves.

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