WYSHW: Martyrs

J’adore les français.

I’m not the biggest gore junkie in the world, but it’s not something I shy away from.  In fact, I love a good scary movie, gorey or other-wise.  The most important thing is the story.  Granted, that could be said with movies in general but I’m just talking about horror right now, especially because lately I feel as if mainstream horror has become a throwaway for teen flicks and torture porn – just cheap thrills and tits.  So here’s a small tiny taste of what’s going on elsewhere outside of the mainstream and dive into Martyrs.

Martyrs is a French torture flick that has made its mark on the New French Extremity movement, a film movement which focuses on human transgression often through violent means.  And I won’t lie, this is why I find Martyrs so incredible.  The story is about a young girl, Lucie, who escapes from a seemingly abandoned warehouse horribly abused.  Taken into an orphanage, she grows close to a girl named Anna to whom she confides in.  As it turns out, since her escape Lucie has been followed by a horrible being hell-bent on killing her unless she finds the people who took her in her youth.  When Anna is thrust into Lucie’s nightmare, she unravels a world of secrets, faith, and transcendence.

She chose martyrdom over taking part in the remake.

I need to find more New Extremity films, because I fell in love with Martyrs.  As dark as this film is, I found it inexplicably beautiful.  I was so relieved that there finally was a more prevalent reason for this agony, but the ending is so profound, let alone thought provoking, it’s impossible to ignore.  And with the ending the way it is, it’s something to discuss over and over – even I can’t even make a solid statement on what I think the final words meant.

Now, what truly disgusts me is that this film is yet another perfectly good foreign movie that is to be imported to  the US.  That’s not the bad part.  Other than the fact that the producers of Twilight are behind it, it seems that Daniel Stamm, the alleged director, completely missed the point of the film, having said the following:

Martyrs is very nihilistic.  The American approach [that I’m looking at] would go through all that darkness but then give a glimmer of hope. You don’t have to shoot yourself when it’s over.

Now, if he actually saw the movie, let alone understand the premise, I think he’d eat those words.  Because of course the director of The Last Exorcism knows it all when it comes to fantastic endings. /sarcasm

Next time on What You Should Have Watched, a low-budget sci-fi that you really should have seen by now – Sam Rockwell is amazing.  Now excuse me but my jimmies need to be un-rustled.