Martyrs

Martyrs is one of those truly weird horror movies that because of what it tries to do and say is extremely polarizing. It is one of those movies that is definitely not for squeamish since there are some really hard to watch torture scenes, pretty much the last 30 minutes are one extended torture scene. 

 

The plot itself focuses on a young woman Lucy who breaks into a house of seemingly normal family and kills them all. We then find out that she was actually a victim of abuse when she was a child, and that she the people she killed were actually her tormentors. She is late joined by her friend Anna who was also abused as a child. Anna questions Lucy's sanity and wonders whether or not the people she killed were actually the ones responsible for the abuse. Lucy keeps getting attacked by a weird creature that we later find out what it actually represents and whether or not if it is real, which I'm not going to reveal. There is about half way through a turning point of the film where movie switches gears and becomes something else. 

Actually the one thing that brought most of the debate, and why some people consider this movie brilliant were the last 10 minutes or so. I'm not going to reveal what happens but I'm pretty sure that some people would be baffled by the scene and some were consider it kind of genius. It doesn't really give a flat out answer to a question that it is posing, but there is definitely some thing to take away from that last scene.

The reason why I decided to watch this film was actually due to the fact that I was curious to see what was so polarizing about it. A day before this movie I was watching Irreversible which is another movie that got mixed reviews that range from calling it genius to those that call it cheap exploitation. That movie had about a 9 minute rape scene, which forced some people to stop watching any further. I was in case of that movie on the side of the people who consider it great. Martyrs also got the similar reputation so I was really curious to see what was all the fuss about. 

As far as my opinion of Martyrs goes I'm somewhere in the middle. I felt the opening was really strong, providing intense introduction and building an atmosphere in a nice way. There are definitely some questions being raised in the first half of this movie. Then the extensive torture scene starts, which I felt really brought down the movie for me. The torture scene itself didn't really bother me all that much. What actually bothered me was the fact that way too long and to be frank very boring for me. I felt that they unnecessarily lingered on that scene for way to long. They actually brought it back with that last 10 minutes when they introduced some really interesting ideas. I do have some problems whit the message that it tries to convey, but lets just say that my opinion has to do with my beliefs.

Overall an interesting film, which I probably wouldn't recommend to everyone but a movie that it will really make you think.