Martyrs Movie Review

Martyrs (2008)

Rent Martyrs on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Pascal Laugier
Directed by: Pascal Laugier
Starring: Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï, Catherine Bégin
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
A young woman's quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child leads her and a friend, who is also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.

Verdict
This gets very gross and detailed. Whatever story this has seems to exist just for the excuse of showing people tortured. This is so graphic, and I'm not sure I could recommend it even if the story did have some depth. I thought this was just a revenge movie of the action genre. This is gross out horror, that's less horror and more designed to make you outright squeamish. While the ending aspires to be cerebral, it seems like an excuse for the torture we've seen.
Skip it.

Review
This is rough from the very beginning with a child that was kidnapped and mistreated. I had no idea what I was getting into. There are kidnappings, maybe even supernatural elements.

Lucie (Mylène Jampanoï) escapes from abuse and fifteen years later she's obviously disturbed. This gets gross and quite graphic. This is not the typical revenge movie, this is a level of crazy and gross I wasn't expecting. I'm not even sure what's going on. Lucie's plight for revenge is in part to appease a demon. Is the demon even real? Lucie calls Anna (Mylène Jampanoï), and they must be good friends since Anna is willing to help her cover up crimes, especially ones this gruesome.

Mylène Jampanoï plays Anna

I wondered where the line on reality was. Lucie is disturbed, and it's easy to understand why with her past. You could call this a horror movie, but it's not trying to scare you. The goal is to gross you out and make you squeamish.

Anna finds a secret underground room that proves Lucie's claims, at least some of them were correct. Anna encounters the heinous things one person can do to another. This is part of some conspiracy, an underground group using torture to discover enlightenment, I guess. Who knows. They want to discover the secrets of the afterlife. It's telling they torture others and not themselves. But this is all a construct so this movie can gross you out. There's no real logic to it, it's just an excuse. It's provocative just to get a reaction. I'll give it some credit for creativity and making this about enlightenment, but it's shallow.

The movie devolves to torture and abuse depicted graphically on screen. It's not interesting, it's definitely not entertaining. This is just horrid. If you think the movie can't get worse, oh it definitely can. We don't see the final act of torture, but we see the aftermath and it's certainly horrifying.

The enlightenment aspect of this feels tacked on to make this more interesting than it is. It's one heck of an ending for several reasons.

SPOILERS

"Keep doubting." We don't know what Anna told the old woman, but either way it was a clear cut answer that causes the old woman to take immediate action. Her advice to her assistant is to keep doubting. To doubt is to continue living. With all the answers and no uncertainty there's no reason to keep living. It's a dark ending that can go either way. Was the answer good or bad? It doesn't matter. Doubt is why this cult pursued answers, but that feels a lot like window dressing with how gross this movie gets.