Alleluia

• It's a modern transplant of the real Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck case — the late-1940s 'Lonely Hearts Killers' who courted women through personal ads, then robbed and murdered them. Du Welz and co-writer Vincent Tavier moved the story more than sixty years forward into present-day Belgium and the Ardennes.
• Cinematographer Manuel Dacosse shot it on grainy 16mm, leaning on smoke and natural haze to keep the texture filthy and close — critics have described the result as looking shot through fogged, mold-stained glass.
• It's the middle entry of Du Welz's 'Ardennes' trilogy of amour fou films, all set in the Belgian backwoods and all starring Laurent Lucas. Calvaire (2004) opened the trilogy at Cannes Critics' Week and Alleluia premiered in Directors' Fortnight in 2014; Adoration (2019) closed it out.
• Same true-crime case behind The Honeymoon Killers (1969) and Arturo Ripstein's Deep Crimson (1996). Du Welz's version distinguishes itself by relocating to Europe instead of the American East Coast or Ripstein's Mexico.
• Swept the Fantastic Features competition at Fantastic Fest 2014, taking Best Picture, Best Director for Du Welz, Best Actor for Laurent Lucas and Best Actress for Lola Dueñas.
• Won the 2014 Méliès d'Or for best European fantastic feature film, awarded at the 47th Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival in Catalonia.

The brother-and-sister cover story isn't just a grift mechanic — it's the film telling you Gloria has rewritten the relationship in her head. By erasing herself as a lover and reframing as kin, she makes Michel's seductions a betrayal of blood, not just romance, which is exactly the logic that lets her justify each killing as protecting the family unit rather than eliminating a rival.

The victim-named structure (Marguerite, then Gabriella, then Solange) tracks Gloria's escalation rather than Michel's con. Each woman is a test of whether she can tolerate sharing him, and each fails worse than the last — the chapters are really a countdown on her capacity to endure, with the hammer and the fire marking the moments her control finally snaps.

Gloria, not Michel, is the true predator the film is about. Michel runs a transactional, almost bored swindle; Gloria brings the ecstasy, the religious-fevered devotion the title nods at. Reading her jealousy as possession-by-love reframes the movie — the horror isn't the murders, it's that her violence is the purest expression of feeling either character has, and Michel keeps her around because that intensity is the one thing his hollow con can't manufacture.

Gloria works a morgue and raises a kid alone until a dating profile drops Michel into her lap — a con man who beds lonely women and bleeds their bank accounts. She doesn't just fall for the con; she signs on as his crew, posing as his sister while he courts and marries marks. Then the jealousy starts cooking. Every woman Michel touches to keep the grift alive becomes a target, and Gloria starts swinging hammers and lighting matches. Love and slaughter stop being separate things. Fabrice Du Welz drags the old Lonely Hearts case into the Belgian woods and lets it rot beautifully.