Review of Martyrs (2008) by Paul Z — 19 Oct 2010

As any follower of the genre by now knows, the most original and audacious horror films of the past decade have been receiving a hasty theatrical release in America, at best, before finding their audiences on DVD. Whether this is because of the outpouring of the amount of subtitled horror endeavors, the effect that the flood of PG-13 rated wide-release horror movies have had, or the, um, emerging awareness that horror fans are a lucrative, although rather decisively distinct niche, the truths of the marketplace have guaranteed that people who are just seeing mainstream horror films are missing opportunities for the genre's most electrifying recent harvests. It may be no shock then that Pascal Lugier's Martyrs, which is almost certainly the most ferocious, unwavering horror film of the decade, has found itself premiering on DVD in America.

What most singles out Martyrs from other recent horror films is its degree of determination. To talk about its plot is to deprive the film of its huge gut blow. Maybe it's best simply to observe that it's keen to delve totally into its themes, chancing audience infidelity as it incessantly redefines what breed of movie it's seeking to be. As this warped excursion into shame, vengeance and evil unfurls, we find ourselves aligned with two institutionalized girls one after another, an ordinary nuclear family, a woman assailed by some sort of demon, her besieged friend (and unreciprocated lover), and the members of an underground organization. As intentions become clearer, audience pities are made to modify, coercing us to suspect our function as viewers. Once the complete intensity of Lugier's depravity is unraveled, the film divulges itself as a contemplation of being prey.

Martyrs tells a story that is not only gashed into distinct acts, but also is prepared to transfer into altogether separate subgenres of the horror film to realize its purpose, which unquestionably concerns nurturing audience awareness about their bond with the pandemonium it depicts. It's alternatively a psychological thriller, a slasher movie, a monster movie, and a torture porn endurance trial. While the story is intended to keep viewers guessing, it's also resolved to defy our notions about what altitudes of on-screen torment and agony we can find tolerable. In both length and concept, the brutality continually tests us. Throughout the sequence of the film, gore is used to traumatize, repulse, gratify visually, make us writhe, and make us feel for the victim.

When a third-act development begins to portray such cruelty as something cyclical and numbing, Martyrs ends up rising above any audience bloodlust, posing the query of whether radical delineations of screen violence can take audiences any closer to common realities about our nature. In its numerous contortions, it appears to suspect why we treat ourselves to watching horror movies at all. Martyrs' editing follows a number of frames, centered on the animal temperament of time, cutting to the next shot despite what is occurring within the image, so our most primitive and emotional responses play a part in the lack of being able to predict what could possibly come next. But cutting rooted in time, using the visual structure of the shots, along with the varying momentum of the cadenced cuts, persuades more difficult connotations than that.

It upsets exactly because it sabotages expectations of the torture film genre and gives a motive beyond sheer sadism, at the same time giving some insight into Lugier's own posturing. The unmitigated final sequence is monotonous, deliberately, but it summarizes the same despair that the rest of the movie seeks. As Martyrs moves toward its end, it gets tantalizingly close to gusting the subtextual reverberations of the horror genre into the open, compelling us to tackle some revolting realities. It closes with an ultimate, absolute substantiation of despair; a vital loss of hope that sends viewers out of its diagetic world with a jolt harder than any show of blood and guts could administer. Possibly more than any other horror film, Martyrs displays the scope of the genre's resources to come across ways to stimulate, goad and alarm us. It attempts, and achieves, so much that it makes most contemporary movies, despite genre, look complacent.