Review of Martyrs (2008) by Chan Y — 08 Apr 2010

After watching this movie, I am left feeling strange, uneasy, and disturbed as the human minds that thought this up have got to be some of the most bizarre and unnerving I could ever imagine. the film follows two girls, anna (morjana alaoui) and lucie (mylene jampanoi), and their seemingly twisted lives.

when she was younger, lucie was imprisoned in an abandoned building by people who chained her to a chair and repeatedly beat her daily. one day, she escaped, but found that she was not the only one being held there against her will.

that being said, she is haunted by a severely mangled woman who drives her to mutilate herself. she then meets anna in an orphanage, befriends her, and decides to stay with her. 15 years later, lucie finds the people who tortured her, and proceeds to kill their entire family.

anna, who didn't initially believe her, comes to her aid to help dispose of the bodies. lucie then proceeds to kill herself, with the aid of the mangled woman, who is actually a figment of her imagination.

anna then discovers that lucie was telling the truth about her past and finds a woman chained to the wall in the basement with metal stapled into her body. the woman then is killed by strangers, who turn out to be a secret society who kidnaps and tortures women to a point where they are believed to see life after death.

needless to say, anna becomes their next victim. this is easily one of the hardest movies I have ever watched, especially the last half as it follows anna's time being tortured, and eventually skinned alive.

the story is very twisted, but not hard to follow, but I wouldn't actually recommend this to most horror movie fans. this is more of a mysterious drama with a lot of gore. it is worth a watch, but stay far away if you can't handle excess gore.