Finally brought myself to watch this film and
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Can't say I "enjoyed" it, or even "liked" it... In fact, I found myself crying at the very end of it. The fact is, I just don't have the stomach for exploitative, violent, and torture movies, even if there is an "end" to the bloody means. It makes me feel sad, violated, helpless and hopeless.
But as the Madame says in the film,
It's so easy to create a victim...
In that regard, the movie is successful. Hell, not just in
that regard - It's successful in a myriad of ways:
Brilliant first half of the movie that keeps the tension high that you can barely pause to catch your breath - Fantastic suspense, tension, and emotion.
As MM says, the movie could have ended there for me too. In fact, there were quite a few places mid-film where I thought to myself, "Wow. The movie must be almost over. What a fantastic fucking film. I can't wait to go on Facebook and HDC and gush about this... But it's so short!! Oh, wait - It's not ending...
Where can they possibly go from here??
So to its credit, it does answer the proverbial question,
Where can they go from here? by completely defying expectations (I thought for the first 45 minutes that all the talk about "torture porn" - heh hehe Ferox - was going to turn out to be a bunch of malarky... BOY WAS I WRONG) and COMPLETELY catching me off-guard (despite this movie being out for quite some time!! I was STILL taken off-guard!! Just like... A VICTIM).
And the rest of the movie was executed with cruel, cold, calculating precision, absolutely horrifying and stabbing at me with every scene.
To say that it took me to a depth of misery that I have never experienced before with a film is an understatement. At the end, I wept at the blackness - At the hopelessness - At the fact that I had just exposed myself AND the boyfriend to a film that I KNEW would make us uncomfortable. But, oh, "uncomfortable" is a bit of an understatement...
But here's the thing about
Martyrs: It's smart. Like,
wicked smaht. It's not just abuse for the sake of depravity - It actually had a message driven into the sadism - And the "message," while some have said that it was preachy and over-the-top, I found really, really interesting. That made the movie a bit more palatable than your average exploitation flick.
But ultimately, I think that the movie's mission, in part, is to make victims of its viewers - To torture them as they do poor, beautiful Anna.
So.
Does
Martyrs belong in
TotalFilm's 25 Most Disturbing Films Ever?
Yes.
Does
Martyrs live up to the cult hype and praise?
Absolutely.
Is it fair for someone to say
Martyrs sucked?
God, no.
Will I ever watch
Martyrs again?
Fuck no.
I'm going to go eat some chocolate, curl up with my Bear and hug myself until this feeling of unhappiness goes away...