Helene, a beautiful but lonely school teacher in a small French town, finds a kindred spirit in the local butcher, Popaul, who has returned from a 15-year spell in the army. However, as some women of the town fall victim to a brutal serial killer, Helene begins to suspect her new found companion.

One of Claude Chabrol’s best known film The Butcher is as much a crime drama as a complex romance, permeated by the terrors of colonial wars and the cruelty of everyday appearances. Reminiscent of Hitchcock and Lang, and with an extra sense of social malaise and ominous suspense hanging over it all.