Martyrs - Most disgusting film ever (and I still watch it)

I like to think I’ve pretty much seen most types of horror film throughout the course of my life, so I’ll never forget the first time I sat down to watch French horror film ‘Martyrs’ for the first time.  It starts with a young girl escaping a horrific ordeal at the hands of some unseen captors, before she’s placed in care of the state.  There, she befriends another girl and the two become close.  However, if the first girl’s torture wasn’t bad enough, she’s haunted by some sort of supernatural presence equally hell-bent on harming her.

So, that’s how it begins and my initial reaction was, ‘Oh, sort of like The Grudge.’ The being tormenting the girl kind of looks like every creepy dishevelled little long-haired kid from most recent Japanese horror films (think The Grudge, The Ring or Dark Water) so I was pretty underwhelmed when it came to originality.  How wrong I was.

I feel that I should now state as to how and why I was proved so wrong with my early expectations, however, that would pretty much take us into ‘spoiler territory.’ All I can really say is that all is not what it seems.  This film has many moments where you think you know where it’s going, only to have everything you thought you knew pulled away from you and replaced with something even more horrific.  The two main girls both give excellent performances, but the character that steals the show comes into the story a little later.  I won’t go into too much detail about her, but she’s known as only the ‘Mademoiselle’ and she isn’t easily forgotten.

I suppose if you had to label this film within the horror genre, you could loosely call it ‘torture p*rn.’ However, that’s probably over-simplifying it a bit as that kind of branding conjures up images of the ‘Hostel’ franchise. ‘Martyrs’ is a lot worse than that simply because the whole premise is slowly revealed over the course of the film.  Although, due to its graphic content, a strong stomach is advised to possess before you contemplate sitting through this, plus – as you’ve probably guessed – it is pretty dark, but not just dark – bleak is the word I’d use, so don’t expect anything even vaguely uplifting here.  I guess the target audience are people who can stomach a film like this.  I suppose I must be one of them as this is the third time I’ve sat through this.  I just find it difficult to believe that after nearly four decades of watching horror films there’s still one that really does disturb me.  Obviously you’ll have to put up with French subtitles all the way through, but, if you do and you have a really strong stomach for nastiness, then this film really will leave a lasting impression on you.  It still gives me goose-bumps just thinking about it!

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one