Martyrs is a laughable film whose only value is that it has a bit of a stream-of-consciousness narrative. You’d never expect its tale of two frightened girls at the orphanage would lead you to a cult of old people who rip the flesh off of young girls in an effort to get them to commune with the afterlife in order to discover if they need to worry about an eternal reward. While this last act twist is, I agree, novel, it is self-defeating. If you are so worried about meeting God, why don’t you just go to confession, instead of kidnapping and brutalizing people?
Anyway, proving that not all French cinema is cigarettes, coffee and Marxism, Martyrs is vile, painful and disgusting, but even that gets boring after a while. Laugier may know how to pour on the ketchup, but his directing style seems to be, “Yell! Now yell more. More yelling! Yell again!”
If you read sites like Bloody-Disgusting, Dread Central and FearNet, Pascal Laugier is the second coming. (Of the splatter sites, ShockTilYouDrop is the lone voice of dissent.) I watched this because there is quite a buzz about how boundary-pushing the movie is, and because Laugier is remaking Hellraiser. Yes, it makes Saw look like Toy Story and the unpredictability of the script is, if you want to be generous, notable – or it could just be the dude doesn’t know how to write. Either way, if you feel the need to martyr yourself, go right ahead.
In response to the above critique, I would like to add that if the people in need of answers simply went to confession, it wouldn’t make a good movie. Perhaps you have missed the entire impact of what the director has tried to say, or maybe such issues dont play a large role in your own life. Perhaps many critics vomit intellectualised garbage and often wash over the pure point being made. Dont forget – a lot of unnecessary evil (if I may use the term without being accused of believing in non-tangible entities) DOES go on in the world, for many different reasons.
Anyway, I thought it was cool.
I think it is the unreasonable violence in the film makes it scary, offcourse the existential theme is absurd to any sane individual, but the cult thing makes it scary, just like catholic church and mummified nuns inside the walls, the sect thing makes it awfully realistic and scary,
For sane individuals: offcourse the violence in the film also makes it horribly stuppid in a sense. If you wanna reach outer existence just meditate or whatever /// Micke Punk
That is the most ridiculous and misleading write-up I’ve ever read on Martyrs!! Martyrs is easily the best and most important horror film in the last 10-15 years!!!