M is For...

One evening a few months ago, I walked into my local video store and asked for a crazy horror movie that was worth watching. Knowing my taste in movies, they handed me a French film called Martyrs. I had my ideas about what to expect. They were fucking wrong.

Martyrs begins with a punch to the gut. A young girl, Lucie, has just escaped from a slaughterhouse where she has been held and tortured for a year or so. She is found by police and assigned to an orphanage for disturbed youth. She has lost all communication abilities, and continues to inflict lacerations and other injuries upon herself. She experiences terrifying hallucinations and falls off the deep end. She makes one friend at the orphanage, Anna, and the two grow to adulthood together.

Fifteen years later, a suburban family sits down to breakfast. They laugh and talk about the day they have planned. Mom and Dad are amused by their son and daughter; they are typical siblings who have petty arguments designed to annoy each other. The doorbell rings and the smiling Dad goes to answer it. A shotgun blast instantly kills him; Lucie and Anna rush in and massacre the entire family. Having spent her entire life in fear, Lucie has reconciled the family's murder as her only means to escape her experiences. The audience begins to wonder if these really were the people that held Lucie, or if she has finally gone over the edge. The rest of the film takes a shocking turn that I don't want to give away.

Martyrs is a brutally disturbing film. There are visceral images displayed here in both shockingly graphic and jarringly blase fashion. There are ideas presented here that both rattle and offend. This is not a slasher film or a scary movie. It is a statement and declaration. If you can stomach the events portrayed here, then Martyrs should be high on your "to watch" list.

Posted in: Horror,Horror A To Z,martyrs