October 2nd, 2010 - Martyrs

Everyone knows I'm a fan of direct to video horror. I watch pretty much all the crap that comes through my video store at one point or another, and I've taken some flak for it. Now last March, we get this one single copy of Martyrs. I'm excited, I've heard all the film festival buzz. Walk-outs, people fainting, death threats to the director. I'm shaking, I'm so excited. And of course, someone rents it before me. But when they brought it back, I could tell they were shaken. I finally take the disc home, watch it. 100 minutes later I'm pacing my kitchen, feeling a tiny bit queasy. A film that justified watching all that junk. Finally taking all those chances paid off. So, the question is 'how does it hold up?'

Man, I remember this movie being way more intense. I daresay I was a bit bored in the second half this time. The concept is great. A girl gets kidnapped and tortured. She escapes and makes friends with a girl at the hospital, but is tormented by her memories. 15 years later the two of them hunt down the people responsible with a shotgun. After that, things get weird. I still appreciate that the story throws me for a loop more than once. Without spoiling anything, lets just say some of the deaths do not happen when I expected they would. The first attack on the kidnapper's family is brutal and effective. Some of the shots are terrifyingly beautiful and stick with you well after the movie is over. And I still love the extremely nihilistic ending.

That said, the entire thing is 15 minutes too long. The scenes with Lucie, the main character, fighting with her inner demons are violent and disturbing the first few times, but they just keep going and going. The same happens for when another character gets captured and tortured. The scenes that were shocking and uncomfortable eventually just meld together into an unpleasant sameyness. It's a shame, because it ruins the pacing and just makes the entire thing feel bloated. Then again, it's possible that director Pascal Laugier wanted us to feel numb to the proceedings, to put us in the villian's shoes, but numb isn't quite the same as bored.

All told, it's still a bleak, dark, violent horror film that deserves an audience. Most of it works, and works quite well. It just could have a leaner, meaner classic. Tomorrow, I'm going to watch another direct to DVD flick, only more recent and probably not nearly as good. Remember I'm still open to suggestions!

NOTE: My official blog is not quite up and running yet. I didn't want to delay the start of this, so for the meantime I will be posting my reviews on Facebook and my temporary blog here, interiorityentertainment.blogspot.com