Martyrs

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Martyrs

71% Liked It
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Martyrs

Catherine Bégin, Emilie Miskdjian, Isabelle Chasse, Juliette Gosselin, Mike Chute

Tells the story of Anna, once a missing little girl, found wandering a year later on a country road virtually catatonic after suffering some sort of physical abuse. She grows into a comely young woman...( read more  read more... ), but she's got serious issues. She also has a close friend, Lucie, who she ultimately calls after she finds herself in an unusual house in the middle of the forest. There's something very disturbing about the Bauhaus-esque home, something Anna can't quite put her finger on.

Id: 11011236

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Recent Reviews

Martyrs Recent Reviews
  • rebvodka042099
    November 28, 2009
    rebvodka042099
    This was extremely painful to sit through, and having seen it before going to bed, I was constantly looking around just in case someone was there. Not many horror movies can instill the fear in you, but this one certainly does. It's cruel, hard to take, and impossible to accept. ...( read more)Canadian horror has a lot to offer, but I didn't really care for the subject (the religious aspect of it, that is - young people having to suffer through all of that just to find out if there is life after death). Truly horrifying, masterfully acted, bitterly delivered. A greater quality, more realistic Hostel. There truly are no limits to human malice.
  • mrpopcorn
    October 31, 2009
    mrpopcorn
    "They did not finish to be alive..."

    A young woman's quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child leads her and a friend, who is also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.

    ...( read more)2 face="Century Schoolbook">REVIEW
    It's a rare horror film that lingers in my mind for days after viewing, gnawing at my subconscious, but Martyrs, from French director Pascal Laugier, achieves just that thanks to its continuously evolving storyline and sheer, unrelenting brutality that is guaranteed to disturb.

    A shocker form the word go, Martyrs opens as a young girl, Lucie, escapes from a dilapidated building where she has been held captive and subjected to torture by persons unknown. Fifteen years later, a now fully grown but mentally disturbed Lucie (the lovely Mylène Jampanoï) eventually manages to track down those responsible for her abuse and, accompanied by best friend Anna (Morjana Alaoui), proceeds to exact revenge.

    Justice is swift, with a shotgun toting Lucie coldly dispatching her targets (and their innocent children for good measure), but even though Lucie's nightmare seems as though it is finally over, Anna's is just about to begin.

    Martyrs might not be perfect, with a final act that is a little too drawn out (and arguably unnecessary altogether), but there's no denying the power of this film as a whole: it's the cinematic equivalent of a flurry of punches to the gut which leaves one feeling both queasy and breathless.

    Laugier displays incredible control of his material, delivering tense horror and nerve shredding terror whilst also splashing bright red gore across every frame. By the closing credits, even the most bloodthirsty of gore-hounds will have had their fill of shotgun wounds, lump-hammer attacks, cutthroat razor slashing and skin removal, and although there are points at which I feel it might have been wiser to end the film, Martyrs' ultimately ambiguous ending does at least invite conjecture and debate about such lofty subjects as religion and the afterlife.
  • g0disd3ad
    October 12, 2009
    g0disd3ad
    One of the sickest horror movie I've seen in quite a while, I loved it
  • ceWEBrity
    July 21, 2009
    ceWEBrity
    There is no middle ground with Martyrs. Surely if you know anything about the film at all, it is its divisive nature. I will tell you now that I thought the movie was absolutely despicable but it also comes with my emphatic recommendation. If you've got the nerve, see it, because...( read more) taking in others' opinions about it has been absolutely fascinating to me. I will attempt to keep this review free of spoilers, because as the director says, it is at its most effective as a virgin experience. I will be discussing the ending, but with as little plot detail as possible. I was tempted to just completely spoil it without remorse but maturity soon took hold of me and I decided not to deprive any potential viewers of what will surely be a great deal of complex thought.

    I am giving it one star only to put it ahead of Funny Games. This film is about the greatest "fuck you" that anyone could ever give to Funny Games. Pascal Laugier effortlessly upstages Michael Haneke's attempts at shocking, contemptuous violence and does it without the self-congratulation, or the winking, or the breaking of the fourth wall. As a condemnation of violence, it is infinitely more effective, but the fact that the movie even exists in the first place renders it self-defeating. Laugier's preface to his own film is necessary watching - to see him speak with candid excoriation of both himself and the monstrous work he has created is oddly cathartic. It let me know, at least, that this exists for more of a reason than the brutalization of pretty young French women.

    At the same time, though, this is a through-and-through horror movie, and this genre is simply the wrong place to attempt a narrative like this. Horror inherently fetishizes assault and deformation of the human condition, physically, mentally and emotionally. For all its sanctimony and reverence of Anna, there still exists a harrowing ten minute scene where a woman mercilessly executes a family. We still watch a fleshy apparition ripped straight from J-horror scuttle through a house, bumping and jolting in whatever ways would most scare a lulled audience. The violence is not obscured or metaphorized, but instead lingered on, taken in. This may be justifiable in the final half hour, where this incessant brutality and torture are ascribed an arguable purpose, but everything preceding is there simply to cash in on shock and cheap scares. Where Martyrs would attempt to transcend its genre, it instead falls exceptionally hard into nearly every one of its pitfalls. Especially telling is a spot of gratuitous lesbianism that dismantles the film's "chivalrous" intentions and shows much of its true colors: a flick for the gorehounds to bask in.

    That last half hour, meant to buoy the rest of the film, amounts to little more than an apologist cop-out, suddenly offering viewers something to mull over while still beating the hell out of Anna in the most exhibitionist manner possible. Martyrs ultimately amounts to the movie cashing in your hour and a half of misery and disgust for one very simple question: "what happens after we die?" Someone here learns (or does she?) and it drives her to act very oddly. Past that, we don't know anything. This one universal question is the movie's sole currency, its crutch for presenting this macabre, exploitative gallery. Perhaps Laugier was feeling awfully guilty writing this screenplay and tried to sneak in a little purpose. Two minutes of sophomoric twaddle about martyrdom and vision, however, do absolutely nothing to assuage my guilt and overall sense of dirtiness after watching this movie.

    A film is generally successful in my eyes if it makes me feel something about the characters. Martyrs did, but what overwhelmed this was how I felt about the people responsible for making the film. As a movie viewer, I have a fairly steely aesthetic line, but so much of this movie shows wanton disrespect for anything even resembling thoughtful use of violence. For all its probing questions about the afterlife, and for all the tail-chasing masturbatory discussion of the nebulous ending, Martyrs is not brilliant. It is not above its genre; it is one of its worst examples. It is an overworked, garish fetishization of violence. There is far less thematic depth than it wants to believe. It's not even well-shot past the gripping first five minutes and the music, a half-assed call back to mid-70s Argento, is embarrassing. But maybe I'm wrong. I hate the movie, but I'm not upset that I watched it, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't compelled completely against my own cognitive volition. I wanted to see it through, primarily wondering if it could redeem itself for atrocity after atrocity. I don't think so. Perhaps in the hands of a director with a grasp of brevity and restraint, this project could have been saved, and worked that thoughtful speck of quality into a truly great movie. The real talent here lies not with the director, though, but with the makeup artist (who as I understand recently committed suicide), and that is where Martyrs falters.

    You should watch it, though. Consider this a recommendation.
  • MovieGeek13
    May 27, 2009
    MovieGeek13
    Now this is a horror movie! A French-Canadian co-production, Martyrs comes in the wake of a new movement in French filmmaking that takes horror to completely new levels of extreme. These films are so gory, so relentless in their realistic depictions of what feels like neverendi...( read more)ng violence, that they might make "gore-hounds" turn away in dusgust.
    But Martyrs is out to do more than just exploit violence like so many shitty American filmmakers (yes, I'm looking at you Eli Roth). It begs you to consider actions as a means to an end. It doesn't critique, but it forces you to witness how some people have no limit. To get what they want, they will do whatever it takes; the end justifies the means. And in this case, does it? If you're able to withstand the whole ordeal, this is definitely a film that will spark intellectual discussion, a sign of a pretty damn good movie.
  • eryri
    December 17, 2009
    eryri
    I thought I'd seen it all until I came across this French horror movie. It's absolutely horrific. You'll be left repulsed by the time the end credits roll up but fortunate that you've seen something this good. Nobody can really enjoy seeing this as it's so deeply unsettling. It s...( read more)witches gears midway into something far more disturbing. Just when you think the worst atrocities is over, the movie delivers another sickening blow to your system with a sadistic long torture sequence. There's a term that's been coined for Martyrs and it's 'torture porn'. After watching this you'll find out why. This is not for everybody so be very careful if you intend to see it. If you've got the stomach for extreme cinema then you'll come away feeling satisfied.
  • sakatsu
    December 12, 2009
    sakatsu
    i'm undecided on to rate this 2.5 or 3. Enough blood, gore, and suspense to keep one interested in the movie till the end but the insufficient plot development led to me question my full enjoyment. Threading on existentialism? May be the French will enjoy this more.
  • BetweenTheTrees
    December 11, 2009
    BetweenTheTrees
    After Martyrs ended I was left stunned. I wasn't sure whether to be shocked or amazed to be quite honest. However, the brutally artistic concept of Martyrs is undeniable. It can also not be denied that this is a powerful horror film. Not horror in the mainstream sense, but horror...( read more) created by the very capabilities of the human mind and what we are willing to do to overcome ignorance.



    The film to me felt like it was split into two parts. The first being Lucie's revenge and the second being the ordeal of Anna. The two were not linked all that well, but did manage to hold my attention. Martyrs is bitter and hard to swallow, identifying that there are truly no limits to human malignance. The acting is so harsh and the concepts even harsher, Pascal Laugier has crafted a shocking, thought provoking and truly disputable piece of cinema.
  • calebscross
    December 11, 2009
    calebscross
    I make no apologies for the relative brevity of this review. If it were any longer, I would be forced to give away certain things about the film, and I do not want to do that. This is a film you must discover for yourself.

    Occasionally a film comes along and takes your breath aw...( read more)ay, forcibly evicting you from your comfort zone and spitting in the face of your preconceived, pre-packed, oven-baked ideas on what makes great art. Films like these make you realize that certain boundaries - both metaphorical and physical - can be utterly destroyed and they remind you once again of the power of film making. Martyrs is such a film.

    Unfairly (and lazily, in my opinion) tagged on to the tail end of the 'torture-porn' sub-genre by many critics, Martyrs takes some of the conceits of that kind of film, sticks them in a blender, and then transcends the restrictions of Hollywood franchises like Hostel and Saw, making them look like the crude and buffoonish live-action cartoons they surely are. Laugier's first feature House Of Voices (aka: Saint Ange) was, apparently, a referential piece of work - a love letter to his favorite films and directors. This one, I can only assume, is his own vision entirely and what a dark vision it is.... See More

    To review a film like Martyrs, you have to take great pains (pun not intended) to ensure that you do not give away spoilers. The best way to see something like Martyrs is cold, with no real idea what it is about or where the plot will take you - that's exactly how I watched it, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spoil the experience for someone else. Suffice to say, the film is filled with images of torture and violence - it is, after all, a film about flesh - but instead of focusing merely on the physical damage done to the victims, it achieves a kind of spiritual agony that is, at times, truly uncomfortable to watch.

    At first glance, and from reading the back blurb on the DVD case, you might be forgiven in thinking that Martyrs is a generic slasher film, or a derivative little nasty, but as early as the opening pre-credit sequence you are suddenly drawn into something unexpectedly terrifying. The first five minutes alone of Martyrs scared me enough to realize that I was onto something special.

    Roughly halfway through the film there is a tonal and thematic twist and the narrative becomes something very different to what we might have come to expect - the graphic revenge scenario we have been watching for 45 minutes changes into something much more metaphysical. This abrupt shift in gear will no doubt alienate much of the audience, but I thought it was a masterstroke, deftly justifying the characters' brutality as well as forcing us to confront a genuine spiritual horror.

    I cannot recommend Martyrs enough. Some people will love it; an equal amount of folk will hate it. But if you're seeking something challenging and thought provoking, look no further than this devastating piece of work, which, in my opinion, takes extreme horror to a whole new level of hurt.

    so watch this film...
  • mpghoul1973
    December 11, 2009
    mpghoul1973
    Martyrs is an odd and unforgetable experience. I went into this with out any knowledge of what i was seeing other than it having a notorious reputation for being brutal.
    Pascal Laugier fill the first act with good creepy imagery, tense atmosphere and some really good jump scen...( read more)es. It had me a couple times and thats not easy. Its beginings are blanketed in mystery and suspence. But the second act turns into a completely different film. With lots of torture....for the female character and the viewer. Now i feel the whole 'torture' scenario has been played to death. I liked Hostel and Frontier(s), but I have no interest in the genre. Give me creepy old fashion horror. Not glossy torture ala Saw. But Martyrs is different than the rest. There is originality in the story. The last act is a very uncomfortable watch and it never lets up. Its fucking brutal and unpleasent. Yet there is a cool reason. Laugier continues the suspence in the last act and there is still a great horror element. I hear Laugier is up for directing the Hellraiser remake and after seeing this iam sure he may be the only person capable of doing it.
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