"......and a happy New Year!!!!!!"

Watched Martyrs last night after managing to avoid all the fuss and controversy about the movie. I knew it was meant to be brutal and violent, but I managed to avoid plot details, images etc as i know when a film can be built up that when you eventually see it (ala Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door) it can be very disapointing. More so that I see for the dvd release in the UK at the end of the month it bore the obligitory review comparing it to Saw. "Makes Saw look like Seseme Street" I believe it said. Hmmmmmm "Comparing things to Saw and Hostel constantly looks like lazy journalism"



I purchased my Region 1 Unrated version this week, had my dinner last night and sat down with an open mind, though to be fair when a dvd starts with the director introducing the movie and apologising for what you are about to see it does worry me. So off it started and I'll have to admit an hour and a half down the line I was pretty speechless.



I'll give a basic plot summary. The film starts with Lucie as a child running free from some kind of warehouse. She is bloody, cut, thin. She is taken to a home for abused children where she meets Anna and Anna quickly becomes her protector. Lucie tells Anna what happened to her, that she was abducted, bound, tortured, starved and beaten on a daily basis for an unknown amount of time. By various people but with no sexual abuse. At night in the home Lucie sees this unknown female figure that is attacking her, mutilating her limbs. 15 years later and Lucie thinks she has found the people that tortured her and arrives on their door step with a shotgun and is intent on revenge and answers. But as Lucie and Anna are about to find out maybe the answers to all of their questions are something they could have never imagined or wanted to know.



Now to be fair that plot summary only actually describes like the first 30 minutes of the movie, I don't want to go any futher into it as it would ruin it. The movie is almost split into 3 sections, which works really well for it. All the actors are amazing in it, and have 100% commitment to what must have been a hard movie to film. The pace never rests and it one of those movies if you don't know much about it then you find yourself getting really into the plot because you want to know what is going on. It's very well directed by Pascal Laugier (who will be doing the Hellraiser remake).

Now the film is violent, don't get me wrong. It has some not nice moments. And I know alot of the assholes out there will rent this movie because it supposed to be really violent and controversial and the French tried to ban it. I think the French tried to ban it and the reason it's controversial isn't because of the violence, it's because of the subject matter. When you realise what this film is trying to say or even point out, it's a pretty loaded gun of a message. And that's what makes it a brave and thought provoking film. Infact I would even say it's a horror, yes horrific things happen, but I don't think it can be labelled that easily.

And what with the French!!!! When did they get so violent? I remeber seeing Switchblade Romance thinking they couldn't top that. Then Inside came out (which is more relentlessly violent than Martyrs) and I was like "what the fuckington fuck!" and now this!!!!! I can't believe it not all baggettes and croissants!


I yearn for these days! Trailer below!