Thread: Martyrs

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* SPOILERS ALERT!*

Hi guys. I've recently seen this film and wanted to know what other people thought of it. Maybe I didn't get it, you know? I was expceting something great, but I was quite dissappointed in this film TBH.

The film starts really strong, with the main character Lucie as a child, running down an empty road, clearly badly injured, distraught, and in pain. It's a good start - the scene intrigues the viewer even as it repulses them - child abuse of any kind being perhaps the one great remaining, pervasive taboo in cinema today). But the viewer is drawn in - why is she running? What is she running from? How long has she been gone?

The film continues well - we join Lucie as a young woman, who finds her abusers and brutally guns them down. But as Lucie's friend Anna starts trying to help a surviving family member to safety, Lucie starts to question whether Anna even believes her story about the abuse she suffered.

Then, the film takes a surreal and ludicrous turn. Fistly, there's the manifestation of Lucie's guilt to contend with - an emaciated, blindfolded creature barely recognisable as a human female - who causes Lucie to brutally self-harm and, in short order, to slit her own throat.

Now, is it just me, or could this have been portrayed equally as effectively without having to portray the creature as an actual, physical being? Ok, so the spectre was pretty damned creepy. But it required a real suspension of disbelief to accept this 'creature' as a physical manifestation. I feel it would have been better if the creature had remained a clear mental construct - this would have made the 'mental health issues' aspect of the storyline seem far more believeable, and something people could more readily relate to.

Suspension of disbelief is stretched to breaking point as three absurd things happen in quick sucession. First, we are introduced to the people who orchestrated Lucie's kidnap and torture. We are told that they are involved in creating martyrs - in other words, killing people in a brutal and prolonged fashion in the hopes that in their dying throes they will see the afterlife, and achieve 'martyrdom'. We're told that young women make the best martyrs. This is never explained. Ever. And it doesn't make sense.

The whole concept is deeply stupid, and it gets worse.

The next act of these amoral fundamentalists is to make Anna their next victim. We're them subjected to a series of clips in which Anna is held captive and systematically punched. To a seasoned horror fan, this is all a bit unremarkable...I mean, vindictive, inhumane creatures have been torturing teens for decades (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, anyone?) We then learn that anna has only "one stage" left to go in her martyrdom. Which leaves you wondering...what's next? What could be more horrible than this? Is she to be burned or crucified? Something suitably medieval, surely...

But no. The last stage is that Anna is taken to a big white room where she is placed on a shiny metal machine that flays her entire body all in one go. Or something like that.

And then we learn that Anna has survived the flaying and has seen the afterlife.

Why oh why did the 'final stage' have to be something so preposterous? I can think of a dozen things that are more scary, more atmospheric, and less bloody stupid. Ok, so being flayed is surely no picnic in the park, but nevertheless...the way this scene is filmed, in such a scientific fashion takes you out of the movie and into the world of medically-related speculation ("But where exactly would you BUY a flaying machine?) and just ruins the atmosphere a bit. Yes, sure, I take the point that maybe they were trying to portray the cult's detached approach to abusing young women, yada yada...but for me it just didn't work. And really, how likely is it that someone would survive being flayed? Someone whose body is weak from brutal torture? C'mon. Throw me a bone here.

I've since seen reviews which hail Martyrs as an amazing, provocative, complex film, which explores the last of society's taboos as well as being a commentary on the perils of blind belief. However, I just thought the film overreached itself. After all, we've seen religion as a theme before in horror (The Exorcist, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Wicker Man, to name a few). It's not really anything new. This film was two films squashed into one, and therefore neither was fully realised. At its best moments, Martyrs was akin to Hostel - tense, claustrophobic, reprehensible and thoroughly compelling. But at its worst, it descended into barely-explained pseudo-science, ludicrous corruption of what a human being could medically survive, and a half-assed explanation that left you with the vague idea that it was all the fault of the church - but didn't really offer any further information.

To me, this film was dissappointing. It failed to shock me. I felt I'd seen it all before. 'Torture porn' might be a new genre, but for anyone that's seen the horror movies of the 70s and 80s, committing atrocious acts of mutilation is really old hat in horror. Neither did the film deliver as a thought-provoking treatise on society, taboo, and how far people will go in the name of religion/pseudo-science. I don't really feel that the experience of Lucie's confinement was given enough context to be meaningful, and neither were the experiences of any of the other girls we saw in the film. This lack of depth signifies to me that the experience of child abuse has actually been used in a rather trivial way here - as an instant, shocking theme that will render the film notorious. Beyond Lucie's murderous desire for revenge, we are not really given any insight into what she endured and the impact that might have had on her as a person - which might have lent some depth to her character, and more importantly, dealt more sensitively and thoroughly with the issue.

All in all, I was dissappointed. What did you guys think of the film? Is there something I didn't get?!

They had me till the last bit where they take her underground. I understand why that had to be done, hence the title, but it seems like it went & took a hard left turn into Crazy Town when it didn't need to.

It was interesting to say the least, & proof that original horror movies can be made & that not everything has to be a sequel or "reimagining." So I can't completely dismiss it, but it's not for everyone & it wasn't what I'd expected either.

I saw it and felt disappointed when I saw it as well. It's not the type of movie I thought it would turn out to be.

Yeah if I'd known going in it was gonna go the direction it did, I wouldn't have minded so much.

Originally Posted by RCIAG

They had me till the last bit where they take her underground. I understand why that had to be done, hence the title, but it seems like it went & took a hard left turn into Crazy Town when it didn't need to.

The pretty much sums up what I thought.

I bought the DVD when it first came out because I really wanted to see it and it had a very long wait on Netflix. I sold it the next day.