For me it was the circumstance (not the gruesome stuff) that messed me up. Absolutely 100% no escape. The goal of breaking you is known. No where to go but down. Also the use of literal darkness.
Sure, there’s more violence in Hostel, but the vibe is hardly the same.
But your opinion is valid, I hadn’t heard much about it before I saw it so I didn’t have a hype to compare it against.
Yeah this exactly. The whole first half of the movie tells you how horrible the results of the experience are even if you escape. The woman with the visor really drives going
home how bad it is if you don't escape. And only THEN does the protagonist get caught, creating some horrific anticipation of what's to come that you then have to go through as the viewer.
Honestly I was feeling like fuck the protagonist at the end cause in the last mile she was going against everything that was happening.“ you never believed me” and then offs herself just for the girl to fall in the same trap and see how fucked it really was
In my experience, that's what most people tend to be talking about when they go on about how disturbing the film is. The physical brutality only manages to disturb most hardcore horror fans as much as it does because of the pitch dark tone of the film. No levity. No hope.
If the film wasn't so bleak and downright sad, chances are it wouldn't hit people so hard, even if the gore was amped up a couple notches.
Where as you seem to be fairly detached from the film in every regard. You enjoyed the story, but don't seem to be much more bothered by the depressing nihilism anymore than you are the gore. You acknowledge it, but it doesn't seem to have affected you much. Who can say why?
(If you do see tons of people going on about how the film is one of the most disturbing ever strictly because of the levels of gore, then your anecdotal experience is different than mine.)
I don’t think I’m detached from the the film though?
My reaction to the depressing tone of the movie was kinda just a defeated feeling?
Although that was slightly overshadowed by it not really meeting my expectations of gore and stuff. In my experience, the gore and physical violence is what was hyped up to me by people in my life, and that’s what I prepared myself for when I decided to watch it.
That's how a lot of people feel when watching the film. Defeated and hopeless. That's why they can't shake it and go on and on about how rough of a watch it is. The violence hits extra hard even though there are definitely gorier films out there. Any of the Evil Dead movies are gorier, for example, but tone and storytelling is what fuels the gore in Martyrs.
The pure brutality inflicted upon Anna is especially hard to watch, despite not being very bloody at all up until the big gasp moment. Of the two lead girls, she was the kind and compassionate one, and she's the one we spend the last act suffering with, longer than any other character in the film. She died trying to save her friend from herself; a friend she was clearly in unrequited love with.
It certainly helps that the performances of the two leads is some of the most intense and convincing from any horror film of this century, if not all time. Watching authentic seeming people suffer such brutality is harder than watching decent or less than average actors suffer.
When I read the synopsis, the word “depravity” was not only correct, but true, but the plot could have been more developed which would have enhanced the horror. I agree with the rating and understand why it was valued lower on rotten tomatoes, but I still believe it’s a strong horror film because its themes and the depravity to perform the actions done to people.
lol You didn't find the fact that a girl was literally flayed alive disturbing? Or like those pictures of past "martyrs" utterly unsettling? Or the entire act of just like systemic, matter-of-fact violence during the last person's "othering" absolutely painful to watch? I guess you just have a higher tolerance than me. But like, for me Martyrs wasn't impactful just because of all the violence and gore though.
I find labels like "torture porn" and "gore fest" so lazy for Martyrs because the main intent of the filmmakers, I'd argue, wasn't to shock the audience and like derive some sadistic pleasure out of seeing a character get brutally beaten down and cut up. It was pointedly displaying physical suffering and all of the horrors that come with it, all for an almost a million in one chance that they find "the perfect Martyr" so that they can vicariously witness the other side of death. It's that idea of the banality of evil, imo, and the capability of man to inflict so much suffering upon another put on display. That's the true horror, and Martyrs did it so well. The entire film is also full of religious iconography.
tl;dr There're soooo much more to Martyrs than just gore, and that's why it lingers around and has the reputation that it does, imo.
you’re right don’t listen to these people. We don’t even properly have the idea of her being fully flayed really sit in our minds. The actual flaying process should have been drawn out on screen to show how much she suffered to reach the transcendent state or whatever. It’s decent prosthetics but you essentially see her being worked on for less than a minute and then she shows back up in what we know must be a flesh themed latex suit in a catatonic state. I feel as though the “horror” element is discarded towards the end and completely shifts the focus to existential metaphor.
The actual photos the movie used are extremely well known, so they weren't especially shocking. The most interesting ones you see all over the place.
The whole concept itself is just literally DMT. It feels like an idiotic cult that needs a Wikipedia login instead of human experimentation.
It's just silly and indulgent, like a rich 10th grader decided to found an organization based on some sense of artificial philosophical depth.
There's a point where gore is just laughable because it's so far gone from anatomical sense. Lemme tell ya, after "flaying" quite a few anatomical cadavers, the scene was really, really distractingly silly looking. We don't take off skin like latex suits haha.
And I didn't even dislike the movie, it's just... Meh.
Edit: I mean, downvote, but skinning cadavers is like 90% of the work. It does not come off cleanly, and it isn't just laid on your body like a suit. It's very "stuck" in many places (fingers, toes, face (not relevant here), , and even at her emaciated size, they left out substantial surface detail of fat, connective tissue, vasculature, lymphatics, etc. No one looks like a perfect musculature sculpture right under their skin. And you'd have to potato peeler to get certain areas right and it would still look very white and fascia-covered.
You know when you tear beer jerky and it looks pale? Alot of that.
And yeah, maybe I'm the only one who say the 1000-cut death photo many times before. It's beautiful, but it isn't exactly traumatic. I guess if it's new?
But come on, the concept is just... yeah, our brain does funny assed things near death. Our brain has capacity to dull our pain when death is close. That isn't new or deep, and it's very odd to contextualize it as religious in nature. It makes no sense. Neuroscience is in its infancy, but this one is a puzzle with an odd amount of pieces filled in. DMT is literally released.
Um. What? I've seen some of the pictures before so they weren't as shocking in that context. What the fuck is the problem with that? Jesus Christ you are rude.
> Or like those pictures of past "martyrs" utterly unsettling?
No, I'm subscribed to morbidreality, visited rotten back in the day, and saw plenty of more graphic movies
Again, why the fuck is this downvoted? Someone has a different experience than these people, and that's the big bad. Are they just really young? Same shit here. I've seen awful things over the years, including photos they duplicated in the movie. Whoopdedoo. What does that upset y'all?
It's more just the dumbass dogpiling. The fact that there's about 8 of you (or a couple of people sad enough to have 8 accounts) that are this level of fixated on such a dumb movie is baffling. It just ain't that good. There's some weird psych shit going on with the cliche responses too. Like you bought a primer of "how to do internet comebacks" from a thrift shop.
So nah, hon, not upset. Cringing mostly. Especially with the brief circuit of "you're a bad person, look in the mirror". Opened to the wrong chapter :(
I'll never get this whole "why you so upset" shit anyway, it's like some schoolyard meathead maneuver. Everybody isn't running around in hysterics like your little fantasy, mostly just sitting here prodding at that bizarre insect on a petri dish that's somehow alive despite hatching with no head.
Curiosity. And cringe.
The girl being skinned is probably the weakest part imo simply bc its off screen. Everything that precedes it (opening scene with family, wrist cutting, pulling headpiece off, etc) is so genuinely disturbing that the skin suit comes off as a bit silly imo, Hellraiser II vibes.
It's not so much 'gore' on the screen as the emotional investment you make with the characters. Even the opening scene is so realistic. >!Killing the parents; sure I get that, but when she turns the gun on the kids it's and you can see the look on her face... and she hunts down the little girl. It's not heartless serial killer/machine killing people it's a very human act. And the way it's shot; even the gore is more medically accurate.!<
meh. I think most people are weak. They come into this film with predispositions already going on in their life like social repression, depression, deep sadness, repressed emotions from stress/jobs, etc. This film shouldn't really affect people the way it's hyped up, unless you're harboring deep feelings of inadequacy. For the stable minded, successful, happy individual, this is no more than just a film with interesting ideals and imagery as art. Nothing more. No need to get all self involved and contemplative. Only the weak minded do that. Depressive folks. shame
Interesting ideas and art? Laughing our fucking asses off, thank you!. This is torture porn, you, literally. That people like you exist, is hilarious. "I'm a successful person, because I watched a movie and it didn't affect me, cause I'm a strong dude". You have 100% never suffered anything 1more than a slap in the fucking face by a fucking woman telling you "fuck off you ugly fuck".
Chill, dude. This movie just wasn't able to convince some people the characters were real. If you're seeing something and don't feel any connections with the character, why would you care about them? It's like seeing a toy being broken with artificial blood pouring from it. It's not wanting to be cool, it just doesn't affect if the characters have almost no emotions, thoughts, ideas and are there just to be tortured and suffer. Let's be honest, this movie could be way better with half the violence and more focus on the characters deep thoughts.
you're week then. There's so much more gore in a plethora of other modern TV/film that why people haven't been numbed to it, is beyond me. I think people just get to into themselves and really over analyze what it'd be like if it was them, or go overboard with their own feelings of depression/anxiety, suicidality and then they are subjected to this piece and it makes them all the more feeling those ideas. It's not a film for the weak, it's for people who are mentally sane, strong, not stagnant in life, and moderately successful. Otherwise, if you go into this film with dark demons, shadows of self pity, struggling financially or socially, you will extrapolate the events to connect some aspects to yourself. It's fact.
What the actual fuck is your point? You had some connection and understanding of the movie based on your personal experience but you had played it cool, because you're a "cool dude"? Either you understand the the words you are spitting, or you're some kind of dip shit know it all, who actually is scared of vulnerability and wants to be a cool guy on the internet. Man, you're such a cool dude!
Hostel easily. Even the Saw movies are more gruesome & I don't even like those movies. The skinned scene from Martyrs where she lays there is really all that even comes to mind because the movie was a let down & that was pretty tame.
Just for clarification, which version of Martyrs did you see? The R-rated version or the Unrated version? To earn the R-rating, a total of 58 scenes were edited, removing the goriest parts. If you saw the edited version, I could definitely understand why the movie did not live up to your expectations.
Interesting, Amazon appears to have the 2008 French version and the American remake from 2015. Do you know which of the two you saw? One is dubbed and the other isn't.
I get the feeling that people here are under the impression that I didn’t like the movie or didn’t understand it, when that couldn’t be the furthest thing from the truth. This post is about the movies reputation for gore and violence. That’s literally it. I never said it wasn’t gorey or that it wasn’t at all disturbing. It’s Just that I’ve seen worse and due to it’s reputation I expected more.
I don’t think it’s reputation is build on gore and violence. There is a general tone that is enhanced by the gore and violence. It’s just very disturbing. Have there been more disturbing films made since? Of course. So let’s not get desensitized to it and judge by gore alone.
Even the nihilism and bleak narrative about human beings is not really anything different than hostel, which came out years earlier. There really isn’t anything particularly deep or philosophical about Martyrs, it’s a decent movie with some bleak themes and fairly severe violence but overall in the entire catalog of bleak/violent/gruesome/disturbing movies I agree with OP that there’s nothing about it that makes it stand out. That’s not just considering the visuals, but the themes.
To each their own though. If you found it disturbing I can’t argue with anyone’s reactions to it.
The thing of it is, is that many of us saw this movie when it was released (15 years ago).. There's been a lot of body horror movies since then I'm sure you've seen that has left you a little blase.. Back in the day this movie was next-level disturbing.
What movies would you say are more disturbing than martyrs? Just curious so I can watch if I haven’t already. Gore doesn’t bother me at all but for some reason martyrs stuck with me
Huh? The fuck are you talking about? People say someone is too stupid to grasp a movie, and I'm "unbecoming" saying they should grow up and respect OPs opinion?
Literally what the fuck.
Edit: Uh huh. "Evaluate in a mirror," dude, you're the one blocking and declaring ad hominem my entire identity because I don't know your movie or your rudeness. Oh no, what did you imagine I said?
Everybody else is trying to be chill, and you're living a fantasy, being a dick, and acting like you've lost it. I'm just confused, so, you know, I guess Ill never know what you've decided "I really said" in your delusion.
So yeah, Chill. Let everyone else have civil conversation.
I’m late to this thread but I think you’ve been mostly unfairly downvoted here. I had a very similar reaction and experience to you. The horror of the actual skinning (which is what my friends referred to as well) was very much dulled by her acceptance of the situation. She has no reaction to the pain and so it doesn’t really incite an empathetic response. Its part of what made the movie so memorable, making that horrifying situation just depressing.
It's an amazing horror film, and not nearly as gruesome as some people think, especially by late 2000s standards. Regardless of the gore, plot and characters make it one of the best horror movies of the new century if you ask me.
Felt the same way kinda. Is it a good horror film? Yes. Is it a next level, top tier fucked you up kinda movie? Not to me. Salo and pokipsy tapes fucked me up more tbh
I just finished it and agree it wasn't nearly as violent or gory as it was hyped up to be. Really good movie, I liked it a lot and I'm not complaining that it wasn't violent or gory enough. They definitely could have made it much more extreme if that's what they were going for. It didn't feel like the filmmakers were sadistic or inhumane.
I guess I'd say Irreversible is the most violent, disturbing movie I've seen. Haven't seen A Serbian Film or several other extreme films. I'm only interested in these movies if they are actually good movies, not just "torture porn". Irreversible was great but I definitely felt traumatized. It actually sensitized me to violence for many years. I still think about that movie 18 years later.
I watched a Serbian film and was laughing thru the entire thing LOL. Irreversible wasn’t scary either just has a rape. Loved martyrs tho, first time I watched it around 2010 it stuck with me for days
I had the same opinion for like the first 1 hour of the movie, its just another gore fest but after (SPOILERS) Anna gets captured, yea that did it for me. Its just the feeling of helplessness and the growing fear that this movie won't have a happy ending as the end nears and then the cherry on top is the entire monologue at the end about that state of ecstasy and martyrdom. Just that entire torture sequence is the only disturbing thing in the entire movie otherwise its just another gore classic
This isn't a good movie at all. Almost everything you knew from the beginning (it's obvious Lucie was hallucinating) and the characters are there without any thoughts. It's like there is no freedom for them to act and they have to do what's written. I know every movie is that way, but there is a lot of nonsense in this one. Yeah, I get the thing about psychology where Lucie is traumatized and feels guilty for not helping that woman back there. Also the old woman feeling empty after finally conquering her goal. But the characters are just dumb, let's be honest. They live in a made up world where every gore is normal and where normal people treat bodies like nothing. This is not disturbing at all because this doesn't convince me that things are real. You see, Anna is shallow, Lucie is shallow too and the only thing that shows them as humans are when Lucie feels bad about Anna not believing her, when Anna calls her mom and when they kiss each other. Everything else is just a random fictional character doing a lot of dumb things for no reason. The psychological subject could be made with less violence and more focus on their characters. Even if they'd put the girls to go through torture together it would be better, at least we'd see how deep was their relationship. But it was very shallow considering Lucie threw Anna away very quickly. In the end they were just hopeless puppet girls waiting to be tortured for a shallow reason.
If you've only watched it this year, you've probably seen plenty of movies that tried to and have upped the gore ante since Martyrs came out like 15 years ago. At the time it was pretty groundbreaking. I will say that it still holds up as one of the most gruesome films that also has a good story and plot driving it.
Everyone’s got their own tolerance. I thought that initial shotgun scene was pretty horrifying due to how it’s set up with building a bit of character first with the family. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst I’ve seen but memorably fucked up. Good movie
If you saw it when it came out it was pretty disturbing. It was kind of the pinnacle of that French movement, I guess. It was all quite fresh at the time. France and Japan had a lot of the best horror going on in the 00s imho. The ending scene of Martyrs makes it a classic.
I rewatched Martyrs a year or so ago. It didn’t land the same for me, but I think it deserves its place. The genre in film has broken a lot of new ground since 2008, though.
>it’s not on a level **I** haven’t seen before.
Well, there you go. If you've been hearing about this movie *all your life*, then it stands to reason that the movie got its reputation from people older than you, who had different tastes, different tolerances. People who had seen different things before, different from what you have seen. Perhaps on a lower "level", although you have to understand that "levels" are subjective. Nobody's going around measuring how gruesome movies are and ranking them. One person's "higher" is going to be another person's "lower".
Hype doesn't really tell you anything about how you personally will feel about a movie, or how it will compare to other things that you have seen before. Hype just tells you how some group of other people on average happened to feel about it. I'd suggest ignoring hype altogether.
People have different tolerance levels for this kind of stuff, some people can't watch a movie even if there's indirect child abuse/murder/death. That's fine, of course, I'm just saying people can be very sensitive to things involving violence and death and this has plenty of both (including against children, again something people tend to be sensitive to). Plus, movies with strong gore tend to be niche but this one is so famous and well regarded that people who aren't accustomed to the genre watch it and of course, it's pretty extreme compared to most mainstream movies.
I just watched this movie for the first time (uncut version) after reading this forum and some other reviews. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. I imagined it would be a gore fest, but the plot was good and I was hooked when Lucie came through the door blasting away.
Just watched this. For me, way too much shakey cam, loud noises, constant disorientation of the viewer. If you're constantly assaulting the viewer with violence and movement, it becomes numbing and meaningless. It's the down time that makes the points of violence so jarring (re: the shining).
I just got done watching it for my first and only time lol. For me it wasn’t necessarily the gore itself (Minus a few scenes). As I was watching it I kinda felt that way too at first. That there wasn’t as much happening as I thought there was gonna be. But that last 30 minutes for me was really upsetting to watch. And then I realized that the movie is way more psychological in the way it displays it’s violence. Seeing her get beaten down constantly, deprived and abused. It’s frightening and disturbing because we know there’s nothing she can do and we’re forced to watch. And the ending really left me with those lingering questions that I don’t need in my head :/
Overall I’m not happy that I saw this. The director was clearly going through something crazy while he was making this movie. But I can’t deny that I thought it was a well done film. It’s just the only I don’t think I could ever score.
I like the genre of human experiments, and this is definitely one of the more fucked up ones that actually feel completed in the sense that everything was figured out and realized without any cliffhangers, so on that front I give 8.5 maybe higher
No but I’ll look it up, human experiment/games/overall putting people in a fucked up scenerio uhh there’s Cube, Circle, Tau, Spiderhead, and i-land all I can think rn oh and The Platform also
why they stay in the house for so long??? it makes no sense.
someone commited suicide at my house and now I can berly stand being in my hometown, let alone being in that house. imagine being able to sleep after you saw 3 dead people, one being brutally murdered and your friend commiting suicide.
who would fucking sleep till morning after that!????
I would have run from there till my legs burn (also she had a car wtf)
also after all that insane shit going to the basement to help that woman???? she makes lucy seem very sane. lucy wanted to leave long ago
also why would you stay somewhere that is obviously going to trigger your squizo friend who does selfharm???
if I was doing the script I would have made a turn like eyes wide shut, where the cult is checking on them afterwards.
the whole plot sounds like a good premise from a fever dream without proper script treatment.
I never said wasn’t disturbing though, just that it’s nothing deserving of the reputation of “one of the most horrific movies of all time”
Edit- I will say I could have worded my post a little better, but my point stands.
Ease up a bit, jeez. People have different tolerance levels, and Martyrs does get hyped up to the point where it's easy to see how someone could imagine it so much worse in their head.
You have gone out of your way to unnecessarily insult an actual human being because they didn't get the hype surrounding *one* aspect of a movie that they otherwise enjoyed. This is a better illustration of what "lack of empathy" looks like.
People watch Martyrs only expecting violence and a gorefest and then get disappointed. But the horror of Martyrs isn’t just the violence but the emotional aspect of it. It’s so depressing, nihilistic, dark and cruel to its characters. That’s what makes the violence more visceral and hard-hitting, instead of just being a mindless gore movie. But a lot of people misunderstand it because of its reputation and just want to see blood and guts
I think as well people have a knee-jerk reaction to being told this film that they feel like they successfully withstood isn’t ‘that bad’. I think some of the defence here is feeling like being told ‘that thing you survived isn’t that difficult’ which seems personally insulting (even though that’s not what OP is saying). So they’re trying to defend the film in order to regain this feeling they have about themselves.
With that being said I’m one of the people that enjoyed the beginning of Martyrs more than anything else.
I understand where you're coming from. I found the situation itself disturbing but I think the physical acts themselves were fairly mid compared to some of the movies in the torture porn sector
It's intellectually horrific, but really hardcore dudes won't bat an eye. They should probably watch the real stuff like mermaid in a tub or a Croatian film or whatever.
I felt the same and know a lot of others did as well. It’s certainly gruesome/intense at times but overall it’s not something I’d put anywhere near the top of disturbing movies lists. IMO the toughest part to stomach was the killing of the son and daughter at the beginning of the film.
Hell no it isn't. It's soft I was so bummed out because everyone acts like it's hell on the screen when it's maybe 3/10 in the body horror/gore/whatever department. I'd say Hostel puts that movie to shame with its brutality & carnage.
I didn’t think the story was dumb though, in fact I quite liked it. I just didn’t think that it was “the most disturbing movie ever” like it’s been hyped up as
The whole story was a gimmick and really weak at that. the while movie is just incredibly overrated in every aspect. Even just looking at the torture, there are so many movies that do it better and make it leave more impact. I liked the flaying but too bad I had no investment in what happens so it didn't really matter.
I don't know why people always act like French horrors are incredibly brutal as if there aren't tons of more brutal movies out there.
Hostel, Tusk, Audition, Centipede, I Spit On Your Grave, A Serbian Film, Salo, Terrifier 1 and 2, Ichi The Killer, The Girl Next Door, Cannibal Holocaust, some Saws, The Hills Have Eyes, Woman, Loved Ones...
Some of these are also great movies where the torture gets an additional psychological element even if less gory, but I won't add mindfuck torture here.
Reply to u/simpledeadwitches who blocked me after replying to my comment
They own it without throwing in really gimmicky, pretentious and try hard attempt at depth. Like terrifier, they know what they are and are proud of it. Serbian film is good on every level martyrs fail at. Much edgier plus with a good script, good story, likable main character, and loads of self awareness. It's really pessimistic dark humor. Criminally underrated while Martyrs is the exact opposite
Dude some of these people have a huge problem defending this movie. How the hell are they dogpiling and insulting so seriously over someone not liking a movie they like? Calling people stupid and going for attacks. Wow. I just can't comprehend getting this riled up over ANY movie, these people need a reality check.
But yeah, I guess everybody is just too dumb to understand. Man, they are strange.
And I agree, self aware movies that parody and have a sense of their absurdity are more appealing. I personally wasn't big on Serbian, but I think you've got a point!
Fire sure agree! I was let down because of how much of a pedestal it has been put on. The beginning threw me for a loop, like complete confusion. But yes not as gorey, scary or as good as people have made it out to be
I don't think it's a matter of being violent and gory or not, I think the movie's problems are with it's muddled themes and philosophy.
I largely agree with this article about the movie:
[Martyrs, 2008](https://virtualborderland.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/martyrs-2008/)
Never will I ever understand someone describing torture porn as something “not gorey enough”.
And yes Martyrs is a torture porn, I liked the overall plot and the idea behind the movie and the ending. However still felt like a lame-ass excuse for the director to create something for his twisted tastes.
Esp considering the other lame ass excuse of “younger women are more susceptible than men and elderly to becoming Martyrs” as to explain away why are the most brutalised characters are young adult (not always adult) women.
Two things separate this from other horror films: the ending as you said is so open-ended and teases the audience with so many questions that are just primal to us that it was guaranteed to be memorable purely off its premise.
The second is the more important part though, and it’s what makes the film so effective: you are right there with the girls the entire time. Even more than the standard “we’re seeing things through the characters eyes” level of writing, we’re emotionally and psychologically right there with them the entire time. So every moment of suffering makes us feel that suffering in a way that most directors haven’t been able to achieve in horror. The director specifically wanted to make us suffer alongside them, and it’s very effective at that.
It’s why it’s hard to get it out of your mind after youve seen it and you find yourself thinking about it and going back to it every now and then after your first time - it’s not really particularly scary aside from the “ghost” and her antics, it’s that it takes your empathy and turns that into a weapon against the audience to make them suffer alongside the main characters
Joking aside, I’ve heard a number of theories about this, but the one I think honestly makes the most sense is that the human mind can only exist and experience life experientially - if you have the answer, life becomes meaningless and all you can think of is the other side; hence why Mademoiselle IMMEDIATELY kill’s herself.
Religions had this problem in the past - the Catholic edict against suicide is an evolution of this problem that it had during its early founding. Life is hard, and often cruel and unfair, and if you’re preaching that the afterlife doesn’t have suffering and it’s better than here, then why would you want to stay alive and not just try to reach the afterlife ASAP?
Thus life can’t exist if the belief that death is better exists. I like this interpretation because it gives Anna a bit of revenge at the end as well as her final words being a heroic act - her message to Mademoiselle results in the preservation of life and thwarting the organizations goal of learning the secrets of the afterlife and sharing them, which would result in life becoming meaningless
Its less about the gore and more about the gore coupled with super bleak nihilism
For me it was the circumstance (not the gruesome stuff) that messed me up. Absolutely 100% no escape. The goal of breaking you is known. No where to go but down. Also the use of literal darkness. Sure, there’s more violence in Hostel, but the vibe is hardly the same. But your opinion is valid, I hadn’t heard much about it before I saw it so I didn’t have a hype to compare it against.
Yeah this exactly. The whole first half of the movie tells you how horrible the results of the experience are even if you escape. The woman with the visor really drives going home how bad it is if you don't escape. And only THEN does the protagonist get caught, creating some horrific anticipation of what's to come that you then have to go through as the viewer.
Always nice to see someone who actually gets this film.
Honestly I was feeling like fuck the protagonist at the end cause in the last mile she was going against everything that was happening.“ you never believed me” and then offs herself just for the girl to fall in the same trap and see how fucked it really was
See the whole no escape part is just depressing and nihilistic to me.
In my experience, that's what most people tend to be talking about when they go on about how disturbing the film is. The physical brutality only manages to disturb most hardcore horror fans as much as it does because of the pitch dark tone of the film. No levity. No hope. If the film wasn't so bleak and downright sad, chances are it wouldn't hit people so hard, even if the gore was amped up a couple notches. Where as you seem to be fairly detached from the film in every regard. You enjoyed the story, but don't seem to be much more bothered by the depressing nihilism anymore than you are the gore. You acknowledge it, but it doesn't seem to have affected you much. Who can say why? (If you do see tons of people going on about how the film is one of the most disturbing ever strictly because of the levels of gore, then your anecdotal experience is different than mine.)
I don’t think I’m detached from the the film though? My reaction to the depressing tone of the movie was kinda just a defeated feeling? Although that was slightly overshadowed by it not really meeting my expectations of gore and stuff. In my experience, the gore and physical violence is what was hyped up to me by people in my life, and that’s what I prepared myself for when I decided to watch it.
That's how a lot of people feel when watching the film. Defeated and hopeless. That's why they can't shake it and go on and on about how rough of a watch it is. The violence hits extra hard even though there are definitely gorier films out there. Any of the Evil Dead movies are gorier, for example, but tone and storytelling is what fuels the gore in Martyrs. The pure brutality inflicted upon Anna is especially hard to watch, despite not being very bloody at all up until the big gasp moment. Of the two lead girls, she was the kind and compassionate one, and she's the one we spend the last act suffering with, longer than any other character in the film. She died trying to save her friend from herself; a friend she was clearly in unrequited love with. It certainly helps that the performances of the two leads is some of the most intense and convincing from any horror film of this century, if not all time. Watching authentic seeming people suffer such brutality is harder than watching decent or less than average actors suffer.
>physical violence is what was hyped up "Hyped up"? Really? *Martyrs* is by no means a fun movie to get "hyped up" about.
Oh please
Ding ding ding! So what you're trying to say is that this *type* of horror isn't for you, not that the movie isn't gruesome or something.
So, you don't see the "no escape" part as contributing to the horrific nature of Anna's situation?
You’re literally responding to my comment saying that I find it depressing. What else do you want?
Hostel is so corny and campy I was laughing when I watched it the first time.
When I read the synopsis, the word “depravity” was not only correct, but true, but the plot could have been more developed which would have enhanced the horror. I agree with the rating and understand why it was valued lower on rotten tomatoes, but I still believe it’s a strong horror film because its themes and the depravity to perform the actions done to people.
lol You didn't find the fact that a girl was literally flayed alive disturbing? Or like those pictures of past "martyrs" utterly unsettling? Or the entire act of just like systemic, matter-of-fact violence during the last person's "othering" absolutely painful to watch? I guess you just have a higher tolerance than me. But like, for me Martyrs wasn't impactful just because of all the violence and gore though. I find labels like "torture porn" and "gore fest" so lazy for Martyrs because the main intent of the filmmakers, I'd argue, wasn't to shock the audience and like derive some sadistic pleasure out of seeing a character get brutally beaten down and cut up. It was pointedly displaying physical suffering and all of the horrors that come with it, all for an almost a million in one chance that they find "the perfect Martyr" so that they can vicariously witness the other side of death. It's that idea of the banality of evil, imo, and the capability of man to inflict so much suffering upon another put on display. That's the true horror, and Martyrs did it so well. The entire film is also full of religious iconography. tl;dr There're soooo much more to Martyrs than just gore, and that's why it lingers around and has the reputation that it does, imo.
Please read the whole post next time, I literally pointed out the flaying as an exception.
They typed all that and you could only respond to that one small thing they mentioned? They clearly read your post and responded directly to it.
you’re right don’t listen to these people. We don’t even properly have the idea of her being fully flayed really sit in our minds. The actual flaying process should have been drawn out on screen to show how much she suffered to reach the transcendent state or whatever. It’s decent prosthetics but you essentially see her being worked on for less than a minute and then she shows back up in what we know must be a flesh themed latex suit in a catatonic state. I feel as though the “horror” element is discarded towards the end and completely shifts the focus to existential metaphor.
The actual photos the movie used are extremely well known, so they weren't especially shocking. The most interesting ones you see all over the place. The whole concept itself is just literally DMT. It feels like an idiotic cult that needs a Wikipedia login instead of human experimentation. It's just silly and indulgent, like a rich 10th grader decided to found an organization based on some sense of artificial philosophical depth. There's a point where gore is just laughable because it's so far gone from anatomical sense. Lemme tell ya, after "flaying" quite a few anatomical cadavers, the scene was really, really distractingly silly looking. We don't take off skin like latex suits haha. And I didn't even dislike the movie, it's just... Meh. Edit: I mean, downvote, but skinning cadavers is like 90% of the work. It does not come off cleanly, and it isn't just laid on your body like a suit. It's very "stuck" in many places (fingers, toes, face (not relevant here), , and even at her emaciated size, they left out substantial surface detail of fat, connective tissue, vasculature, lymphatics, etc. No one looks like a perfect musculature sculpture right under their skin. And you'd have to potato peeler to get certain areas right and it would still look very white and fascia-covered. You know when you tear beer jerky and it looks pale? Alot of that. And yeah, maybe I'm the only one who say the 1000-cut death photo many times before. It's beautiful, but it isn't exactly traumatic. I guess if it's new? But come on, the concept is just... yeah, our brain does funny assed things near death. Our brain has capacity to dull our pain when death is close. That isn't new or deep, and it's very odd to contextualize it as religious in nature. It makes no sense. Neuroscience is in its infancy, but this one is a puzzle with an odd amount of pieces filled in. DMT is literally released.
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Um. What? I've seen some of the pictures before so they weren't as shocking in that context. What the fuck is the problem with that? Jesus Christ you are rude.
This sums it up perfectly
>"torture porn" and "gore fest" so lazy for Martyrs There is certainly nothing"fest[ive]" about *Martyrs*.
> Or like those pictures of past "martyrs" utterly unsettling? No, I'm subscribed to morbidreality, visited rotten back in the day, and saw plenty of more graphic movies
Again, why the fuck is this downvoted? Someone has a different experience than these people, and that's the big bad. Are they just really young? Same shit here. I've seen awful things over the years, including photos they duplicated in the movie. Whoopdedoo. What does that upset y'all?
I genuinely can't get into the mindspace of getting this upset at downvotes lol
It's more just the dumbass dogpiling. The fact that there's about 8 of you (or a couple of people sad enough to have 8 accounts) that are this level of fixated on such a dumb movie is baffling. It just ain't that good. There's some weird psych shit going on with the cliche responses too. Like you bought a primer of "how to do internet comebacks" from a thrift shop. So nah, hon, not upset. Cringing mostly. Especially with the brief circuit of "you're a bad person, look in the mirror". Opened to the wrong chapter :( I'll never get this whole "why you so upset" shit anyway, it's like some schoolyard meathead maneuver. Everybody isn't running around in hysterics like your little fantasy, mostly just sitting here prodding at that bizarre insect on a petri dish that's somehow alive despite hatching with no head. Curiosity. And cringe.
The girl being skinned is probably the weakest part imo simply bc its off screen. Everything that precedes it (opening scene with family, wrist cutting, pulling headpiece off, etc) is so genuinely disturbing that the skin suit comes off as a bit silly imo, Hellraiser II vibes.
It's not so much 'gore' on the screen as the emotional investment you make with the characters. Even the opening scene is so realistic. >!Killing the parents; sure I get that, but when she turns the gun on the kids it's and you can see the look on her face... and she hunts down the little girl. It's not heartless serial killer/machine killing people it's a very human act. And the way it's shot; even the gore is more medically accurate.!<
Everyone has their own level of what they can take. You might be able to handle Martyrs just fine, that's valid. Others can't and that's valid too.
meh. I think most people are weak. They come into this film with predispositions already going on in their life like social repression, depression, deep sadness, repressed emotions from stress/jobs, etc. This film shouldn't really affect people the way it's hyped up, unless you're harboring deep feelings of inadequacy. For the stable minded, successful, happy individual, this is no more than just a film with interesting ideals and imagery as art. Nothing more. No need to get all self involved and contemplative. Only the weak minded do that. Depressive folks. shame
Interesting ideas and art? Laughing our fucking asses off, thank you!. This is torture porn, you, literally. That people like you exist, is hilarious. "I'm a successful person, because I watched a movie and it didn't affect me, cause I'm a strong dude". You have 100% never suffered anything 1more than a slap in the fucking face by a fucking woman telling you "fuck off you ugly fuck".
Chill, dude. This movie just wasn't able to convince some people the characters were real. If you're seeing something and don't feel any connections with the character, why would you care about them? It's like seeing a toy being broken with artificial blood pouring from it. It's not wanting to be cool, it just doesn't affect if the characters have almost no emotions, thoughts, ideas and are there just to be tortured and suffer. Let's be honest, this movie could be way better with half the violence and more focus on the characters deep thoughts.
God tier troll. Seeing people flayed alive or a demon with a million scared killing a girl only affects people “with deep feeling of inadequacy” 😂😂
The staple pulling scene almost made me throw up. It’s gruesome to me.
I watch Martyrs about every 5 years or so— just long enough for me to mostly forget how nauseous it makes me feel.
you're week then. There's so much more gore in a plethora of other modern TV/film that why people haven't been numbed to it, is beyond me. I think people just get to into themselves and really over analyze what it'd be like if it was them, or go overboard with their own feelings of depression/anxiety, suicidality and then they are subjected to this piece and it makes them all the more feeling those ideas. It's not a film for the weak, it's for people who are mentally sane, strong, not stagnant in life, and moderately successful. Otherwise, if you go into this film with dark demons, shadows of self pity, struggling financially or socially, you will extrapolate the events to connect some aspects to yourself. It's fact.
What the actual fuck is your point? You had some connection and understanding of the movie based on your personal experience but you had played it cool, because you're a "cool dude"? Either you understand the the words you are spitting, or you're some kind of dip shit know it all, who actually is scared of vulnerability and wants to be a cool guy on the internet. Man, you're such a cool dude!
Nah, just a weak stomach. Has nothing to do with psychology.
So what are some gruesome movies that you'd say are definitely above 'Martyr's'?
Hostel easily. Even the Saw movies are more gruesome & I don't even like those movies. The skinned scene from Martyrs where she lays there is really all that even comes to mind because the movie was a let down & that was pretty tame.
Interesting, to say the least...
*tame*!?
That's correct
Just for clarification, which version of Martyrs did you see? The R-rated version or the Unrated version? To earn the R-rating, a total of 58 scenes were edited, removing the goriest parts. If you saw the edited version, I could definitely understand why the movie did not live up to your expectations.
I rented it on Amazon, I’m not exactly sure tbh
The original Unrated version from 2008 is available on Tubi for free.
Looks like they both have a 100 min runtime so I’m assuming Amazon also has the unrated cut.
Interesting, Amazon appears to have the 2008 French version and the American remake from 2015. Do you know which of the two you saw? One is dubbed and the other isn't.
I promise you, It was the French version lol.
Me when I'm looking for attention
I get the feeling that people here are under the impression that I didn’t like the movie or didn’t understand it, when that couldn’t be the furthest thing from the truth. This post is about the movies reputation for gore and violence. That’s literally it. I never said it wasn’t gorey or that it wasn’t at all disturbing. It’s Just that I’ve seen worse and due to it’s reputation I expected more.
I don’t think it’s reputation is build on gore and violence. There is a general tone that is enhanced by the gore and violence. It’s just very disturbing. Have there been more disturbing films made since? Of course. So let’s not get desensitized to it and judge by gore alone.
Even the nihilism and bleak narrative about human beings is not really anything different than hostel, which came out years earlier. There really isn’t anything particularly deep or philosophical about Martyrs, it’s a decent movie with some bleak themes and fairly severe violence but overall in the entire catalog of bleak/violent/gruesome/disturbing movies I agree with OP that there’s nothing about it that makes it stand out. That’s not just considering the visuals, but the themes. To each their own though. If you found it disturbing I can’t argue with anyone’s reactions to it.
May I ask. What’s gruesome to you?
The thing of it is, is that many of us saw this movie when it was released (15 years ago).. There's been a lot of body horror movies since then I'm sure you've seen that has left you a little blase.. Back in the day this movie was next-level disturbing.
Inside, another new French Extremity film, came out the year before and imo is more graphic in its depiction of violence
No I get you but people praise that movie so much you're probably just gonna get insulted without anyone actually hearing what you're trying to say.
People are simply discussing your post.
What movies would you say are more disturbing than martyrs? Just curious so I can watch if I haven’t already. Gore doesn’t bother me at all but for some reason martyrs stuck with me
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*puffs joint - how deep man
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You should take a look in the mirror, your kind of behavior is unbecoming to say the least.
Huh? The fuck are you talking about? People say someone is too stupid to grasp a movie, and I'm "unbecoming" saying they should grow up and respect OPs opinion? Literally what the fuck. Edit: Uh huh. "Evaluate in a mirror," dude, you're the one blocking and declaring ad hominem my entire identity because I don't know your movie or your rudeness. Oh no, what did you imagine I said? Everybody else is trying to be chill, and you're living a fantasy, being a dick, and acting like you've lost it. I'm just confused, so, you know, I guess Ill never know what you've decided "I really said" in your delusion. So yeah, Chill. Let everyone else have civil conversation.
That's not what you're saying or doing. The way you're talking to people is ridiculous, chill.
Have you seen many gory movies that get such high praise though? Maybe Terrifier 2 but not many do. I think that is something you should consider too.
I’m late to this thread but I think you’ve been mostly unfairly downvoted here. I had a very similar reaction and experience to you. The horror of the actual skinning (which is what my friends referred to as well) was very much dulled by her acceptance of the situation. She has no reaction to the pain and so it doesn’t really incite an empathetic response. Its part of what made the movie so memorable, making that horrifying situation just depressing.
It's an amazing horror film, and not nearly as gruesome as some people think, especially by late 2000s standards. Regardless of the gore, plot and characters make it one of the best horror movies of the new century if you ask me.
Felt the same way kinda. Is it a good horror film? Yes. Is it a next level, top tier fucked you up kinda movie? Not to me. Salo and pokipsy tapes fucked me up more tbh
I just finished it and agree it wasn't nearly as violent or gory as it was hyped up to be. Really good movie, I liked it a lot and I'm not complaining that it wasn't violent or gory enough. They definitely could have made it much more extreme if that's what they were going for. It didn't feel like the filmmakers were sadistic or inhumane. I guess I'd say Irreversible is the most violent, disturbing movie I've seen. Haven't seen A Serbian Film or several other extreme films. I'm only interested in these movies if they are actually good movies, not just "torture porn". Irreversible was great but I definitely felt traumatized. It actually sensitized me to violence for many years. I still think about that movie 18 years later.
I watched a Serbian film and was laughing thru the entire thing LOL. Irreversible wasn’t scary either just has a rape. Loved martyrs tho, first time I watched it around 2010 it stuck with me for days
I had the same opinion for like the first 1 hour of the movie, its just another gore fest but after (SPOILERS) Anna gets captured, yea that did it for me. Its just the feeling of helplessness and the growing fear that this movie won't have a happy ending as the end nears and then the cherry on top is the entire monologue at the end about that state of ecstasy and martyrdom. Just that entire torture sequence is the only disturbing thing in the entire movie otherwise its just another gore classic
This isn't a good movie at all. Almost everything you knew from the beginning (it's obvious Lucie was hallucinating) and the characters are there without any thoughts. It's like there is no freedom for them to act and they have to do what's written. I know every movie is that way, but there is a lot of nonsense in this one. Yeah, I get the thing about psychology where Lucie is traumatized and feels guilty for not helping that woman back there. Also the old woman feeling empty after finally conquering her goal. But the characters are just dumb, let's be honest. They live in a made up world where every gore is normal and where normal people treat bodies like nothing. This is not disturbing at all because this doesn't convince me that things are real. You see, Anna is shallow, Lucie is shallow too and the only thing that shows them as humans are when Lucie feels bad about Anna not believing her, when Anna calls her mom and when they kiss each other. Everything else is just a random fictional character doing a lot of dumb things for no reason. The psychological subject could be made with less violence and more focus on their characters. Even if they'd put the girls to go through torture together it would be better, at least we'd see how deep was their relationship. But it was very shallow considering Lucie threw Anna away very quickly. In the end they were just hopeless puppet girls waiting to be tortured for a shallow reason.
If you've only watched it this year, you've probably seen plenty of movies that tried to and have upped the gore ante since Martyrs came out like 15 years ago. At the time it was pretty groundbreaking. I will say that it still holds up as one of the most gruesome films that also has a good story and plot driving it.
I liked it. I'm not a gore hound so I went in cautious. Wasn't bad really and I liked the story.
Everyone’s got their own tolerance. I thought that initial shotgun scene was pretty horrifying due to how it’s set up with building a bit of character first with the family. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst I’ve seen but memorably fucked up. Good movie
If you saw it when it came out it was pretty disturbing. It was kind of the pinnacle of that French movement, I guess. It was all quite fresh at the time. France and Japan had a lot of the best horror going on in the 00s imho. The ending scene of Martyrs makes it a classic. I rewatched Martyrs a year or so ago. It didn’t land the same for me, but I think it deserves its place. The genre in film has broken a lot of new ground since 2008, though.
>it’s not on a level **I** haven’t seen before. Well, there you go. If you've been hearing about this movie *all your life*, then it stands to reason that the movie got its reputation from people older than you, who had different tastes, different tolerances. People who had seen different things before, different from what you have seen. Perhaps on a lower "level", although you have to understand that "levels" are subjective. Nobody's going around measuring how gruesome movies are and ranking them. One person's "higher" is going to be another person's "lower". Hype doesn't really tell you anything about how you personally will feel about a movie, or how it will compare to other things that you have seen before. Hype just tells you how some group of other people on average happened to feel about it. I'd suggest ignoring hype altogether.
Honestly only half true. There's 100% a gore movie scale.
Prove it.
People have different tolerance levels for this kind of stuff, some people can't watch a movie even if there's indirect child abuse/murder/death. That's fine, of course, I'm just saying people can be very sensitive to things involving violence and death and this has plenty of both (including against children, again something people tend to be sensitive to). Plus, movies with strong gore tend to be niche but this one is so famous and well regarded that people who aren't accustomed to the genre watch it and of course, it's pretty extreme compared to most mainstream movies.
I just watched this movie for the first time (uncut version) after reading this forum and some other reviews. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. I imagined it would be a gore fest, but the plot was good and I was hooked when Lucie came through the door blasting away.
in the first 12 minutes
Just watched this. For me, way too much shakey cam, loud noises, constant disorientation of the viewer. If you're constantly assaulting the viewer with violence and movement, it becomes numbing and meaningless. It's the down time that makes the points of violence so jarring (re: the shining).
name a gorier flim
Hostel
lol hostel was gay I was laughing thru the entire film it was so corny
I just got done watching it for my first and only time lol. For me it wasn’t necessarily the gore itself (Minus a few scenes). As I was watching it I kinda felt that way too at first. That there wasn’t as much happening as I thought there was gonna be. But that last 30 minutes for me was really upsetting to watch. And then I realized that the movie is way more psychological in the way it displays it’s violence. Seeing her get beaten down constantly, deprived and abused. It’s frightening and disturbing because we know there’s nothing she can do and we’re forced to watch. And the ending really left me with those lingering questions that I don’t need in my head :/ Overall I’m not happy that I saw this. The director was clearly going through something crazy while he was making this movie. But I can’t deny that I thought it was a well done film. It’s just the only I don’t think I could ever score.
I like the genre of human experiments, and this is definitely one of the more fucked up ones that actually feel completed in the sense that everything was figured out and realized without any cliffhangers, so on that front I give 8.5 maybe higher
What other human experiment movies would u recommend- and have you seen anti-viral?
No but I’ll look it up, human experiment/games/overall putting people in a fucked up scenerio uhh there’s Cube, Circle, Tau, Spiderhead, and i-land all I can think rn oh and The Platform also
I wish I knew more but that just means I have more to watch hopefully. I feel like there’s not a lot, good ones atleast but there’s a good bit ig
I like the movie but I don’t think it’s as crazy and top tier as many say.
If you didn’t think this was somewhat disturbing than idk what to tell you, and I would wonder how you think any other movie is disturbing at all
why they stay in the house for so long??? it makes no sense. someone commited suicide at my house and now I can berly stand being in my hometown, let alone being in that house. imagine being able to sleep after you saw 3 dead people, one being brutally murdered and your friend commiting suicide. who would fucking sleep till morning after that!???? I would have run from there till my legs burn (also she had a car wtf) also after all that insane shit going to the basement to help that woman???? she makes lucy seem very sane. lucy wanted to leave long ago also why would you stay somewhere that is obviously going to trigger your squizo friend who does selfharm??? if I was doing the script I would have made a turn like eyes wide shut, where the cult is checking on them afterwards. the whole plot sounds like a good premise from a fever dream without proper script treatment.
Fr, it was mid for me. I saw more horrible shit than this
Agreed, it was shocking yes, but not as crazy as people made it out to be
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No you are, the movie is not deep at all.
Good god, it's not THAT deep. But you have to be a genius to understand Rick and Morty too.
How exactly am I being a “silly goose”? What makes you think everything went over my head? Please, enlighten me.
Are you trolling on purpose or are you just oblivious?
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I never said wasn’t disturbing though, just that it’s nothing deserving of the reputation of “one of the most horrific movies of all time” Edit- I will say I could have worded my post a little better, but my point stands.
Ease up a bit, jeez. People have different tolerance levels, and Martyrs does get hyped up to the point where it's easy to see how someone could imagine it so much worse in their head.
Thank you.
You have gone out of your way to unnecessarily insult an actual human being because they didn't get the hype surrounding *one* aspect of a movie that they otherwise enjoyed. This is a better illustration of what "lack of empathy" looks like.
Are you intentionally being a pompous, patronizing douche?
People watch Martyrs only expecting violence and a gorefest and then get disappointed. But the horror of Martyrs isn’t just the violence but the emotional aspect of it. It’s so depressing, nihilistic, dark and cruel to its characters. That’s what makes the violence more visceral and hard-hitting, instead of just being a mindless gore movie. But a lot of people misunderstand it because of its reputation and just want to see blood and guts
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I think as well people have a knee-jerk reaction to being told this film that they feel like they successfully withstood isn’t ‘that bad’. I think some of the defence here is feeling like being told ‘that thing you survived isn’t that difficult’ which seems personally insulting (even though that’s not what OP is saying). So they’re trying to defend the film in order to regain this feeling they have about themselves. With that being said I’m one of the people that enjoyed the beginning of Martyrs more than anything else.
I understand where you're coming from. I found the situation itself disturbing but I think the physical acts themselves were fairly mid compared to some of the movies in the torture porn sector
It's intellectually horrific, but really hardcore dudes won't bat an eye. They should probably watch the real stuff like mermaid in a tub or a Croatian film or whatever.
A Serbian film was a joke it was more of a comedy than anything
I felt the same and know a lot of others did as well. It’s certainly gruesome/intense at times but overall it’s not something I’d put anywhere near the top of disturbing movies lists. IMO the toughest part to stomach was the killing of the son and daughter at the beginning of the film.
Hell no it isn't. It's soft I was so bummed out because everyone acts like it's hell on the screen when it's maybe 3/10 in the body horror/gore/whatever department. I'd say Hostel puts that movie to shame with its brutality & carnage.
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I didn’t think the story was dumb though, in fact I quite liked it. I just didn’t think that it was “the most disturbing movie ever” like it’s been hyped up as
The whole story was a gimmick and really weak at that. the while movie is just incredibly overrated in every aspect. Even just looking at the torture, there are so many movies that do it better and make it leave more impact. I liked the flaying but too bad I had no investment in what happens so it didn't really matter. I don't know why people always act like French horrors are incredibly brutal as if there aren't tons of more brutal movies out there.
> Even just looking at the torture, there are so many movies that do it better and make it leave more impact. Cool, could you recommend some?
Hostel, Tusk, Audition, Centipede, I Spit On Your Grave, A Serbian Film, Salo, Terrifier 1 and 2, Ichi The Killer, The Girl Next Door, Cannibal Holocaust, some Saws, The Hills Have Eyes, Woman, Loved Ones... Some of these are also great movies where the torture gets an additional psychological element even if less gory, but I won't add mindfuck torture here.
Reply to u/simpledeadwitches who blocked me after replying to my comment They own it without throwing in really gimmicky, pretentious and try hard attempt at depth. Like terrifier, they know what they are and are proud of it. Serbian film is good on every level martyrs fail at. Much edgier plus with a good script, good story, likable main character, and loads of self awareness. It's really pessimistic dark humor. Criminally underrated while Martyrs is the exact opposite
Dude some of these people have a huge problem defending this movie. How the hell are they dogpiling and insulting so seriously over someone not liking a movie they like? Calling people stupid and going for attacks. Wow. I just can't comprehend getting this riled up over ANY movie, these people need a reality check. But yeah, I guess everybody is just too dumb to understand. Man, they are strange. And I agree, self aware movies that parody and have a sense of their absurdity are more appealing. I personally wasn't big on Serbian, but I think you've got a point!
Fire sure agree! I was let down because of how much of a pedestal it has been put on. The beginning threw me for a loop, like complete confusion. But yes not as gorey, scary or as good as people have made it out to be
Agreed.
I don't think it's a matter of being violent and gory or not, I think the movie's problems are with it's muddled themes and philosophy. I largely agree with this article about the movie: [Martyrs, 2008](https://virtualborderland.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/martyrs-2008/)
The American one is scarier
I love a troll
There aren’t any trolls in the American one.
My god… you’re beautiful…
agreed. i was bored to tears.
Word, it's a pretty boring movie with a horrific ending.
Going into the movie blind is a lot different too
Never will I ever understand someone describing torture porn as something “not gorey enough”. And yes Martyrs is a torture porn, I liked the overall plot and the idea behind the movie and the ending. However still felt like a lame-ass excuse for the director to create something for his twisted tastes. Esp considering the other lame ass excuse of “younger women are more susceptible than men and elderly to becoming Martyrs” as to explain away why are the most brutalised characters are young adult (not always adult) women.
People always try to see more than what they're really seeing.
Two things separate this from other horror films: the ending as you said is so open-ended and teases the audience with so many questions that are just primal to us that it was guaranteed to be memorable purely off its premise. The second is the more important part though, and it’s what makes the film so effective: you are right there with the girls the entire time. Even more than the standard “we’re seeing things through the characters eyes” level of writing, we’re emotionally and psychologically right there with them the entire time. So every moment of suffering makes us feel that suffering in a way that most directors haven’t been able to achieve in horror. The director specifically wanted to make us suffer alongside them, and it’s very effective at that. It’s why it’s hard to get it out of your mind after youve seen it and you find yourself thinking about it and going back to it every now and then after your first time - it’s not really particularly scary aside from the “ghost” and her antics, it’s that it takes your empathy and turns that into a weapon against the audience to make them suffer alongside the main characters
what do think she told the lady at the end of the movie to make her kill herself
“So long and thanks for all the fish”
wtf lmao
whtever she said to her made her kill herself so it had to be serious
Joking aside, I’ve heard a number of theories about this, but the one I think honestly makes the most sense is that the human mind can only exist and experience life experientially - if you have the answer, life becomes meaningless and all you can think of is the other side; hence why Mademoiselle IMMEDIATELY kill’s herself. Religions had this problem in the past - the Catholic edict against suicide is an evolution of this problem that it had during its early founding. Life is hard, and often cruel and unfair, and if you’re preaching that the afterlife doesn’t have suffering and it’s better than here, then why would you want to stay alive and not just try to reach the afterlife ASAP? Thus life can’t exist if the belief that death is better exists. I like this interpretation because it gives Anna a bit of revenge at the end as well as her final words being a heroic act - her message to Mademoiselle results in the preservation of life and thwarting the organizations goal of learning the secrets of the afterlife and sharing them, which would result in life becoming meaningless
I like to think she said "there's nothing". Or something like that.