Martyrs Reviews

There are no words to describe how f**ked-up this movie is. I have not seen "A Serbian Film," which is supposed to make "Martyrs" look tame in comparison, but I truly do not know how it's going to top this. I've seen "Antichrist," "The Human Centipede II," "American Mary," but nothing like this. This movie is spirtually and physically sickening, which is exactly how the filmmaker,Pascal Laugier, intended it.

Okay, I'm probably just riling up you gorehounds, so I'll cut to the chase. To say that this movie is nauseating is not to say it's bad. It's actually very well-made and well-acted from start to finish. Actress Mylène Jampanoï does a great job as the frightened victim turned infuriated perpetrator, and Morjana Alaoui is also terrific as her enamored friend.

Although Anna (Alaoui) harbors a lesbian crush on Lucie (Jampanoï,) her sexuality isn't a huge part of the plot. Instead, the movie is about the giving and receiving of physical punishment (not the least bit pleasurable; sorry, BDSM enthusiasts,) and just how far the rich and selfish will go to secure their own peace of mind, with no regard to the people they hurt.

Maybe comparing the premise of this movie with current class issues is a long shot, but damn it, it sounded smart to me at the time. Lucie is inexplicably held prisoner as a child and subjected to physical pain. Young Lucie (Jessie Pham, in a performance worthy of her grown-up counterpart,) runs away and ends up in an orphanage, where she meets Anna (played as a child by Erika Scott) and forges a close bond.

Anna seems determined to help Lucie no matter what squirrels reside in her attic and continues to be a faithful friend and companion when Lucie grows up and, P.O.-ed and dangerous, takes a shotgun to a couple she believes participated in her torture and their teenaged children.

This movie is super brutal and fairly realistic, and establishes itself as such in the home invasion scene. Unlike a American movie, Lucie runs out of shotgun shells and needs to reload, and the reaction of the family radiates terror, but perhaps, not surprise. The movie a sick (let me rephrase that- sicker) turn after Anna is captured by Lucie's tormenters.

The ending is a 'What the Hell?' moment and will leave you thinking about what it all means. The cinematography is very professional and overall well-done. The scenes involving Anna's entrapment last a little too long, frankly. How many times can we watch a woman be smacked around and degraded when it doesn't advance the plot?

The movie makes the decision to focus on young Lucie rather than her captors in the flashbacks, which is a good cinematic choice considering Lucie is traumatized by the experiences and initially doesn't remember her victimizers. In many of the later scenes with Anna, we see her abusers very clearly, constrasting with with the earlier scenes with Lucie.

I thought this was a very well-made movie, but only watchable for people with very strong stomachs. It's not a popcorn movie, and neither does it intend to be. I liked it, but I don't think I could watch it again anytime soon.

Best horror movie i have ever seen. something hollywood is bad at doing.

Martyrs has become the measuring stick by which I evaluate the shock, disturbedness, and intensity of everything Ive watched since. Made in 2007, I originally found this title at Blockbuster of all places, and theres simply no way they realize what it is. Its not SO extreme that you cant sit through it, but its pretty f-ed up. This movie starts as your typical torture-porn, in the vein of Hostel, Saw, what not,(except done really well and with added layers of mystery) but takes a pretty wild turn and becomes much, much more. For anyone that ever saw the old 1920s maybe 30s French silent film masterpiece, Passion of Joan of Arc (and if you havent, instant-queue it) I think youll agree that had that film not been made, Martyrs would be a different and not nearly as effective film. This movie will scare you, repulse you, and disturb you. Its top rate horror, and has become one of my all time favorites. And yes, I worry about the implications of that statement.

friend recommended this to we - and wow - what a film. Nice little twist, plenty of 'near the bone' scenes and some great effects - we worth watching.

"Martyrs are exceptional people. They survive pain, they survive total deprivation. They bear all the sins of the earth. They give themselves up. They transcend themselves... they are transfigured."

Pascal Laugier's controversial horror movie Martyrs can be described as several things. Shocking, vicious, ugly, merciless, brutal, and sickening are a few adjectives which spring to mind. Fortunately for genre fans with strong stomachs, it's also a provocative, strangely enthralling horror effort guaranteed to trigger thought and discussion long after the end credits have expired. The movie will undoubtedly be labelled as torture-porn and will be compared to Hostel, but (while it's indeed a stunningly graphic movie) Martyrs has virtually nothing in common with the films it will be grouped with. In fact, it could be argued that Martyrs is an anti-exploitation exploitation movie - it's certainly packed with gore, but the graphic content exists to open doors to something far more substantial.

The opening sequence of Martyrs depicts a young girl named Lucie (Pham) escaping from a grim industrial location where she had been imprisoned and physically tortured. Upon being placed in an orphanage, she's befriended by another abused little girl named Anna (Scott). Cut to 15 years later, and the two childhood friends (now played by Jampanoï and Alaoui) are still attempting to find the people responsible for traumatising Lucie as a child. As the quest for revenge draws to an end, something much more insidious is uncovered.

From the film's early stages, a number of questions are posed. Did Lucie kill the right people? What exactly did Lucie endure? What's the ghoulish figure that shows up to attack Lucie at certain points? As these answers are gradually revealed, further questions are tossed in at an alarming rate.

At first the film is somewhat routine and familiar, and even contains some contrived character behaviour to keep the proceedings moving ahead. Certain scenes are fairly predictable as well, but the film shifts gears whenever you believe that you've figured the whole movie out. The real kicker is the final third which goes so far afield that it's jaw-dropping. Added to this, Martyrs feels like it's on the verge of ending every 15 minutes or so, but then another rancid layer of the onion is peeled away. With all this in mind, the movie is one of those rarest of genre offerings - one that manages to stimulate your brain while working a viewer's gag reflex at the same time. It's simultaneously a psychological thriller, a slasher flick, a monster movie, and a torture porn endurance test. Yet, for anyone interested in engaging Martyrs purely on a superficial level, there's plenty of violence and gore that horror fans can appreciate without thinking about the film too deeply.

The violence showcased within Martyrs is alarmingly in-your-face and disturbingly brutal. When blasted in the stomach with a double-barrelled shotgun, characters (even a teenage girl) simply fall into a heap and expire rather than limping away or making dying speeches. The same applies for sliced throats and objects applied to the skull. No matter how jaded you may be as a moviegoer, Laugier's horror film will grab you by the collar and shake you senseless. Even if you believe you can deal with extreme violence and indescribable creepiness, chances are you may not be able to make it through this film's 100-minute runtime - but don't worry, as that probably just qualifies you as a normal member of the human race. On top of this, Laugier lensed the film using a gritty vérité style that amplifies the unsettling realism.

But technical proficiency doesn't in turn mean a film is a masterpiece (applying this logic would mean all Saw and Hostel movies are home runs). See, what makes Martyrs succeed better than its peers is believable performances, incisive underlying themes, and actual suspense. In fact, this could be considered "Thinking Man's Torture Porn". With genre thrills balancing the macabre rumination on physical pain, emotional pain, and the nature of being, this is a must-see for all horror enthusiasts and art-film fans with strong stomachs. The only real problem is that the majority of the movie functions as a lead-up to the big twist, and once you've familiarised yourself with the whole thing, it's doubtful you'll want to experience it again.

7.7/10