Martyrs 4K 2008 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

France, early 70s. Little Lucy, who has been missing for almost a year, is found wandering along a country road. The child is in a state of severe shock and cannot talk about what happened. A few years later, a girl with severe post-traumatic stress syndrome in the company of her friend breaks into the country house of a respectable middle-aged couple living with two teenage children. It seems that the girls have a long-standing grudge with this family.

Review 4K Movie

Pascal Laugier's cult body horror film is a case where the fact that a couple of people fainted at the premiere in Toronto “sold” me on watching it retrospectively. Yes, it's far from being a pleasant viewing experience, but it's an interesting and meaningful religious statement about life after death.

Let me start by saying that yes, I am quite impressionable, but it is extremely rare for directors to really knock me off my feet. In places, Loosie really succeeds in his task: maximum disgusting, nervous, and shocking splatter, which sometimes even goes beyond the bounds of evil and absurdity. There is no expected relish for cruelty, as in the conventional ‘Human Centipede’, but at the same time, an unprepared viewer may well be left feeling unsettled.
One way or another, the script here is really fascinating: the rats cried, pricked themselves, but continued to eat the cactus. Behind all this trash performance, you are interested in knowing the outcome, and it must be quite meaningful and profound, otherwise catharsis will not occur. Fortunately, in Martyrs, everything is fine with the third act. The local governing idea is brilliant: what is a perverted “secular mind” willing to do to achieve what it wants? Yes, we have seen similar bourgeois kitsch before, but here it is elevated to a perverted absolute - an exploitative Passion of the Christ that bows to the giallo films of the 1970s.

I like the look of the film: the cinematographer and editor do their jobs well. Often, you want to close your eyes to what is happening, sometimes you want to shout at the screen and break the ‘fourth wall’, as well as take revenge on the antagonists.

The acting is excellent: Moriana Alaoui and Mylène Jampanoï are the local gems of this horror film. From start to finish, they win you over and make you empathize with their characters. Catherine Beghin is a composite image of wealthy aristocrats and bourgeoisie who deserve to be punished. The rest are minor characters and functions that do not particularly advance the story.
Martyrs is a nasty and scary movie that motivates you not to eat or drink during the screening, but rather to grab a pillow and sit with it in your arms. It's nerve-wracking, but at the same time an excellent authorial statement on the theme of animal cruelty and the blurred image of human morality. You can't just take it and recommend it for viewing. You will either familiarize yourself with it on your own and at your own desire, or you will pass it by and not take any risks. The choice is yours.