Martyrs

Whoa. This is not for everyone, but I loved it. Very well made and original. Ferocious is definitely the right word. Very hard to watch at times, but I couldn't look away. Bravo!

So I just got watching Martyrs and I came to Amazon to give my seller negative feedback. When I ordered this movie I was under the impression that I was getting an American film with a foreign cover. Well I got the foreign film that it is. Obviously I did not pay attention to the site when it told me it was in French. Now that I got my stupidity out there, you might not want to read any more of this review, as I am apparently not all that bright.I won't relive the story as many other reviewers like to do. I read the product description (minus Language: French). I am sure you have done the same and don't need me to repeat it here...like so many other people like to do.And now we are to the whole review part. Umm, yeah, different. Wasn't expecting that. Waste of my time? No way. Good flick. Well printed. Well acted. Not a slasher movie by any means. Yes there was some killing, but not the typical, "I'll be right back..." kind of stuff. Blood was abundant, but appropriate when used. I found myself getting caught up in the images so much that I would have to rewind the movie just so I could read the dialog. I saw someone write that the ending was less than acceptable, and I would have to agree. It was almost a comical ending. I think the writers got tired and were probably pressured by a deadline for them to cut it short the way they did. The movie did drag on at times. I had to check the timer to see how much movie was left..."What? It is only at 45 minutes? Seems like it has been at least an hour!"...Not saying it was boring. It kept my attention. I was just so wrapped up in it that I lost track of time. Kinda saw one part of it coming near the middle, but, for the most part, I just let the movie take me where it wanted to and sat back to enjoy the movie(as much as a normal person can "enjoy" a torture film). No it wasn't easy to watch but that is what makes this movie such a good buy. People don't buy torture movies because they want to laugh or cry or even be scared. They want to be disturbed. They want their bubble to be popped. They don't want to be comfortable. They want their views of the world (as well as life in general) to be challenged. Or they make a mistake and buy the wrong movie. After a few minutes the mistakers (I just made that up...you like it?) should turn off the movie as quickly as possible and press on with their lives as if nothing ever happened. There is no need to review a well made movie simply because you are not comfortable with the subject. Wait that sounds like I am into torture. I am not. Hmm...where was I going with that? So anyway, I am now bashing people that bashed this movie so this review has taken a turn for the worse.My movie is over and I am left with the feeling of what now. What am I supposed to feel based on what I have seen over the last 90 minutes? Am I outraged? Am I saddened? Am I supposed to feel intensly sorry for the women tortured? Am I supposed to want to save the world or am I just supposed to know that this kind of weirdness is present in the world? I am left with this cloud in my head...not sure what is in there. I will just have to feel around for a while to get my bearings.BTW, I saw on this page Amazon says there is an intro. I didn't get that on my version of the DVD. Hope you enjoy it.Bottom line: Would I buy the movie again? I have bought duplicate movies (let me refer you to paragraph 1), but if I had lost my copy of this movie or had rented it, the answer is yes I would buy this movie.

Whenever I've mentioned this movie to my friends I've always told them that "I've seen it, I love it, and I would never watch it again." I'm more then willing to lend them the DVD, but I won't watch it with them. I've been a horror fan for years, and when you love the genre enough to step outside of the American schlockfests that get wheeled into theaters it's a delight to find the trends that are occurring in foreign horror. I'm not entirely sure why France has lent itself to such good horror, but the French New Wave is like a graduate school for those sick of the tedium of Paranormal Activity and Saw, willing to redefine the limits of horror in a truly inspired and creative way unlike the dull nihilistic extremism of something like The Human Centipede films. A lot of people cite High Tension, Frontier(s), Inside, and Martyrs as the hallmarks of the genre, and for the most part this is true. Martyrs is different because more than all the others it is an endurance test of a film, and while it could absolutely be categorized as so-called "torture porn" it chooses to use the conventions of the genre to enhance the structure of the film rather than wallow around in gore (although there is plenty of that). Its really difficult to proceed much farther in the review without dancing into some kind of spoiler, but I assure you that I will stick to plot events that occur in the first ten minutes of the film. We have Lucie, a young girl who was violently tortured for weeks as a child who managed to escape but is pursued by a mysterious demonic creature who seems to want to inflict pain upon her. Years later Lucie believes that she has found those people who were responsible for her torture and bursts into their house with a shotgun, killing a couple and their son and daughter. She then calls her childhood friend Anna, who is panicked that Lucie might have found the wrong people, to come help her. That's as far as I can go, and I believe that its all the information that you should have going into the film (if you're curious enough to look up the trailer on Youtube, don't, it spoils everything and makes the movie look like its something that it's not). Director Pascal Laugier approaches his material with relentless, cold efficiency and interlaces his plot with a sense of real mystery that is intoxicating as a viewer. Even at the film's most harrowing points, when you have to look away from the screen (if this honestly doesn't happen for you, see a psychiatrist), you can sense that the scene has a purpose and you find yourself saying "it'll be over in a minute, I have to see what comes next." Every character has a motivation that is understandable on some level (even some sick levels), every actor enlisted performs their job in a masterful way (especially Catherine Begin, who's midpoint monologue is among the most chilling in cinema) and nobody is simply evil for evil's sake. In the film's second half the plot takes on philosophical overtones, which climax in a gut-wrenching ending that left me staring at the credits trying to collect myself for a good five minutes. I don't have nightmares from slasher movies anymore. Jason and Leatherface can brandish as many knives and chainsaws as they want and I'll usually just eat popcorn and forget about it once I leave the theater. I had nightmares after watching Martyrs. It's a kind of movie that gets under your skin, and if that sounds like a good time for you then its a movie that's worth your time. It is rumored to be gearing up for an American remake under the hand of Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism) and from the producers of Twilight. With those clues alone it feels like they might try to cram it into a PG-13 box (as it is, its pushing NC-17), and Stamm has stated that he will be changing the ending if the movie does indeed get made in order to make the movie more upbeat. I can absolutely assure you that doing that will ruin everything that makes this movie special, and so I highly recommend watching this before the American remake spoils it.

I bought this for my friend Bettina, so this is her review she was kind enough to write for me:"Okay, I've just watched it, and my head is still spinning, maybe I could put my thoughts in better order with time, but I want to write this down while it's all fresh - When the film finished my friend Cornelia who'd watched it with me turned to me and said "When you told me it was a film about two orphan girls that become friends, I thought you were trying to rook me into watching some gory horror film that you knew I wouldn't like. But actually, that's just one of the things that the film is about." (Okay, so Anna isn't an orphan because she phones her mother, but she was abandoned, so she's sort of an orphan). This film made me cry right at the beginning when Anna befriends and looks after Lucy, and it made me cry at the end. This is a gory film, but it's not gratuitous, it's a beautiful film about love, friendship, compassion, and about kindness persisting in a world of monsters. The biggest difference I think, between the original and the Blumhouse version is that the Blumhouse version (made for the USA market) suggests that there is definitely an afterlife, where as this one is more ambiguous (I only finished watching it a few minutes ago but you can go round and round in your head thinking about it - I don't want to start a debate amongst reviewers about what the ending means, because I don't want people to get passionate about it and inadvertently post spoilers for those that haven't seen it yet). I have to say this though: Last Saturday the Jehovah's Witnesses knocked at my door and asked me if I thought suffering would ever end. I answered in a way that seems facetious now, that I didn't think it would, because even if someone was so rich they didn't have to work, that they had everything they wished for done for them, after a few years of this they'd become so spoilt that the first time they stubbed their toe when they got out of bed, or got indigestion or a hangover, or something just didn't go right immediately, they'd feel they were suffering. So I answered then that suffering is part of the human condition and is inevitable. Seeing this film has completely changed my mind on what suffering means, and makes me realize how shallow and superficial my answer to a deep question was.. It's really wonderful film, perhaps one of the most beautiful, poetic horror films ever made. Whilst many films manage to be entertaining, there are few that change the way you look at life, but that's what this film did for me."

Please only read the synopsis and no more about the story itself. Spoilers are really a problem for this film. This is an upgrade from my DVD and the picture quality is noticeableFirstly I have to say that I do not find many films that frighten me anymore. Most horrors are like roller coasters, a little nerve-wracking but if you are used to them, rarely scary.MARTYRS scares the crap out of me!!!!A movie which is frightening, brutal and violent in the extreme. It is also disconcerting, uncomfortable, scarey and deeply scarring.So, you are probably wondering why you should watch this French masterpiece - the clue to this being in the word mastetpiece.Most people who bad mouth Martyrs seem not to have watched it to the very end, and there is the rub. You have to get through an hour and a half of visceral fear and violence for those last five minutes, which really does give the viewer a massive pay off for their perseverance.We become one with the main protagonist and the emotional relationships built up with the viewer are surprising.I would only recommend this movie for seasoned horror veterans who may also find it a tough watch as most others won't last the course.So this is a genius movie, where the violence and horror are not there to titillate. They give us a sense of fear and disgust allowing the viewers, in a way, to become the Martyrs.Finally do not compare this to the English language 2015 remake which is OK, but due to being diluted, it is a weak film in comparison.Don't forget your cushion to hide behind.

If you've come to this film via the bastardized American remake you are in for a delightful, but jarring, surprise. The French original surpasses the pale Hollywood version on every level: acting, cinematography, psychological depth, and horror.I won't lie - this is an uncomfortable watch, but like all the best films out there this is a film that will burrow beneath your skin and never leave. A truly harrowing, existentialist-driven narrative that has you rooting for the emotionally scarred Lucie in the film's first half, to a deeply disturbing and shared sense of demoralisation in the film's bleak second half.If you like your movies served up with a large dose of optimism and the triumph of the human spirit then this is not for you. For those of us looking for something a little more honest, unflinching, and accepting of the brutal truths that lurk in those secret dark spaces of the human heart, Pascal Laugier's MARTYRS will do just fine.

Vor kurzem war der Film über Amazon Prime noch zu sehen, habe ihn da laufen lassen, während ich am Laptop gearbeitet habe. Trotz dessen, dass ich gerade den Anfang nur wenig mitbekommen habe, war der Film genial. So genial, dass ich 2 Wochen später den Film noch einmal sehen wollte und diesmal auch aufpassen wollte ;-)Also bestellt und gefreut - leider aber total enttäuscht: Diesmal warf der Film mehr unnötige Fragen auf, als er beantwortete. Die elementare FolterSzene am Ende wurde quasi komplett gestrichen: Auf einmal ist sie enthäutet auf einer Barre gespannt und und läutet das Ende ein. Ohne das Martyrium gesehen zu haben, will man aber nicht verstehen, wie sie so schnell zu Martyrerin wird. Das leuchtet wenig ein.Dieser Film lebt von dem Brutalen, dem Verstörenden, dem Abscheulichen. Versucht man dieses zu schneiden, verliert der Film an Bedeutung, an Aussagekraft und zu guter letzt auch an seiner Message. Definitiv nicht empfehlenswert.

Originally I bought this and watched it before tuning into the Sardonicast episodedis using the film intellectually. This was a real eye-opener. I can’t honestly complain much about the film as everything either seems suitible to any horror fan’s liking while some of it may even leave a good impression like photography direction or the esquistely hair-raising pacing of its story. The last twenty minutes may get a little “tiring” though and while it’s nothing rare to see main characters making obnoxious decisions in horror films, this one is arguably no stranger to the cliche with its secondary character Anna. Also, I can only recommend that anyone who wants to watch this film MUST be an avid horror fan or unaffected by graphic scenes of violence (and really do mean graphic in every sense of the term!). This movie has plenty to offer fans of the genre and if you’re really looking for a movie requiring nerves of steel just to see half of it, this would be a key pick