[7] Featuring an ensemble cast of 24 actors, led by Sofia Boutella, the plot is set in 1996 and follows a French dance troupe holding a days-long rehearsal in an abandoned school; the final night of rehearsing is a success, but the group's celebratory after-party takes a dark turn when the communal bowl of sangria is spiked with LSD, sending each of the dancers into agitated, confused and psychotic states.

The film is notable for its unorthodox production, having been conceived and pre-produced in four weeks and shot in chronological order in only 15 days: although Noé conceived the premise, the bulk of the film was unrehearsed on-the-spot improvisation by the cast, who were provided no lines of dialogue beforehand and had almost complete liberty as to where to take the story and characters.

Climax premiered on 10 May 2018 in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Art Cinema Award.

The film received positive reviews, with much praise for its direction, cinematography, soundtrack, choreography and performances, although some criticized its violence and perceived lack of story.

In the winter of 1996, a professional French dance troupe, led by manager Emmanuelle and choreographer Selva, rehearse an upcoming performance in an abandoned school.

Emmanuelle sees her young son, Tito, drinking the sangria and locks him inside an electrical room to protect him from the agitated dancers.

A frenzied Lou confronts Dom on the dance floor, but the group, all heavily affected by the LSD at this point, turns on her and accuse her of having spiked the drink.

While Emmanuelle desperately searches, Selva sees Taylor and a group brutally beating David, who has spent the night talking about and approaching women salaciously.

When the school suddenly loses electricity and switches to red emergency lighting, someone laughingly shouts that Tito has electrocuted himself.

Ivana drags a heavily hallucinating Selva through the halls passing a distraught Eva in a shower, trying to wash off the blood from Lou's cuts.

Gazelle flees the room and stumbles into the central hall where the remaining dancers have descended into drug-induced psychosis, dancing wildly, writhing on the floor, chanting in tongues, having sex, and physically assaulting one another.

As the police search the building, Psyché, who has several books related to hallucinogens in her bag, and apparently suffering no ill effects from the acid, goes to her room and drops liquid LSD into her eye.

We started casting and preparing the movie at the beginning of January [2018], and we were shooting one month later in an abandoned school in a suburb in Paris.

The crew included cinematographer Benoît Debie, assistant director Claire Cobetta, and set decorator Jean Rabasse.

[9] When asked about the casting process for the film, Noe said "I went to see some voguing ballrooms and krump battles, and I was hypnotized by their body language.

[9] One of the cast members was a contortionist in Congo whom Noé had heard of when searching for unusual dancers, and got into touch with before flying him to France.

Although Noé conceived a basic story, and gave the cast ideas as to where the story and characters could go, he did not write any lines, and let the cast improvise the dialogue and most of the situations in front of the camera; there were no rehearsals, and only the premise, the characters' basic personality traits, and the early dance scene had been planned beforehand.

He stated that when the cast asked him for a script so they could learn their lines, he answered, "No, just come to the set and do whatever you want, I’ll never push you to do anything against your will and if you have any ideas please tell them to me.

"[10] Noé did give several ideas to the cast, but let them be free to follow them or not: "I knew the start and the end point, but I didn’t know the in-between.

I thought it would be funny to do it the other way, like shoot almost documentary style with long cuts, seeing how the effects of drugs and alcohol are experienced, how its seen from the outside.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, Climax captures writer-director Gaspar Noé working near his technically brilliant and visually distinctive peak.

[24] Noé's direction, Benoît Debie's cinematography, Thomas Bangalter's score, and the performances (both in terms of acting and dance) were praised; Boutella, in particular, was singled out.

In a positive review, Joseph Walsh of Time Out stated: "Inventive and seductive, this infernal chamber piece will be sure to divide opinion.

The camera plunges into the chaos, melding physical theatre with a palette of fiendish reds and impish greens, all accompanied by throbbing techno.

"[25] Hau Chu of The Washington Post also gave a positive review, stating that "Noé has made what might be his most accessible and, yes, tender film to date, teasing the idea of heavenly bliss - before heading straight to hell.

"[26] Ray Pride of Newcity gave a very positive review, stating: "Climax is a rude, refined, gyroscopic, hurtling mash-up ... of heaven and hell [with] a bravura dance number with a ravishing range of bodies in orchestrations of sensual motion and the camera brandishing its lavish mobility for moments on end."

[27] Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Richard Roeper was less positive: although he highly praised the various dance scenes, calling them "a jarring, beautiful, dangerously adventurous symphony of arms and legs and torsos, bursting with originality and sexuality and almost violent physicality, all set to a relentless and seemingly endless hip-hop beat.

Seriously great stuff", he criticized the dialogue and horror scenes, stating that the film "turns into a sick circus of atrocities", which "just as often is more annoying and attention-seeking than dramatically effective, and the increasingly absurdist storyline.

"[28] Scott Craven of The Arizona Republic panned the film, rating it 1 out of 5 and stating, "Climax is actually two movies, one in which you hang out at a party with young dancers who are as wearisome as they are flexible, and the other with the same group on acid.

When a mom locks her young son in an electrical closet (inside is a menacing circuit panel that, if animate, would swallow the child whole), even those without kids cringe as the boy screams for help.