Martyrs (2008)
Martyrs is a French horror movie that came out in 2008 in the language of French. I know saying the language sounds redundant but there are many foreign films in languages I totes have never heard of before
You literally cannot escape any "What's the most disturbing movie?" thread without the mention of Martyrs. It was definitely among a short list that was consistently mentioned. Which is totally why I didn't get around to watching it for years. I finally did.
This movie is absolutely not for the faint hearted. Well duh just looking at that movie poster alone. So if you want the short of it: This movie is about 2 women who escaped being brutally tortured as children and return to the house as adults.
SPOILERS! Will vaguely talk about practically the whole movie. Won't happen in every post.
So this movie starts out very disturbingly happy. We see this family of 4 eating breakfast having your run of the mill picture perfect settings of a happy family enjoying each others company. Playful banter, siblings being siblings, parents LOL-ing. You almost feel like you are watching the wrong movie.
DING DONG
Father gets the door and is greeted then yeeted with the barrel of the shot gun wielding Lucie covered in all black with her lengthy brunette hair obscured from view. Family scrambles but she hunts them down one by one. Even. The. Children. It was so terrible. They were not little kids but teenagers which doesn't make it any less sad.
She gets in contact with Anna who comes to the house and tries to clean stuff up. She was convinced that the parents were the ones responsible for the brutality they suffered as kids.
my phone has pretty weird timing
I feel like I shouldn't give a play by play of the whole movie which I constantly feel I am doing every post but ehh it is my blog after all. I don't consider my blog a review blog anymore anyway. I will admit though that I did expect it to be more grotesque.
I will say though that this movie is still hella graphic. They don't pull any punches when it comes to the graphic depictions of people being tortured and other self mutilations.
We see that Lucie is so far gone. From beginning to end you can see the inner torment that never faded even as an adult. She has these hallucinations of a demon lady attacking her which we come to find out is a manifestation of her guilt for leaving a victim behind when she fled her torturers as a kid. Very strange yet very clever depictions to see the extreme extent of Lucie's inner prison.
There was another scene that I remember people were warning about in the threads that was "disturbing" It was the bath tub scene when Anna puts a newly found victim in the tub and tries to pry off the metal staples off her head. It was ehhh I expected more gruesome but not a complaint.
So it turns out that the people behind this are a secret society who are on a relentless quest to find out what happens after death. They torture victims to the brink of death theorizing that it will trigger some kind of miraculous vision of the afterlife while they are still conscious. Oh gosh that reminds me of the case of this one murderer that I will refrain from naming as I don't want to bring more attention to this already infamous serial killer that did something similar to his victims. He would play an audio recording detailing how he was going to torture them to death along with the screams of previous victims. It's fucking sick. That's what this part of the movie reminded me of. After Anna was explained the why's and what's, she immediately proceeds to get placed in the chamber where it begins.
A lot of this movie is straight up depressing. Not talking about physically this time but psychologically, mentally even spiritually. What I liked about this movie so much is that there are layers. You not only see the physical horrors but also the representation of utter utter hopelessness. No support system of any kind, no loving family searching for Anna and here she is back to her captors. You can see that glimmer of hope rapidly escaping. One may note she never had any hope. You just see her condition revert back to her childhood.
So the ending.
The ending was definitely something. It was left open ended. Which really sealed the deal of why this movie has such critical acclaim within the horror community. This movie was far from being neatly wrapped with a bow. The ending literally had no ending. It was open to interpretation because the answer to the long sought after question was left with more questions than answers. Pretty genius if you ask me.
As brutal as this movie was, I could actually see myself watching this movie again albeit very sparingly. I will say though that this movie is not nearly as grotesque as everyone makes it out to be. I was expected my eyes to be scarred for life and while it was indeed gruesome, I've seen worse. This wasn't your stereotypical revenge movie. I wouldn't even say this is a revenge movie. It was a strange twist that morphed into something more diabolical. If you got a really strong stomach, this just may be the movie to tickle your fancy. Maybe don't snack on anything while you're watching though. If you can handle Atroz, you can handle this.
Bonus read: Interview with the Actresses Gives you some insight to the movie's production.
Yo, so with that being said, what is the verdict?
Worth the hype just grotesque AF
So there was your French horror movie of the day and here is your French metal band of the day!
