a stalwart, a juggernaut, a whale of a woman
I HATED THE MOVIE MARTYRS and i've been sitting on this review for a while. it's not often i can't find words to describe my dissapointment in a film. but then again this goes beyond dissapointment. i guess i'm trying too hard, because ultimately i wanted to write something that would be the end to all of the glowing reviews of this movie.
but here's what i managed to get down. i'll share because this may be the first thing i've ever felt a real passion for- this crusade against a french horror film called Martyrs. spoilers may abound, because no one should force themselves through the swamp of sorrows and leave their precious horse, and their 97 minutes behind for this shit.
Martyrs (2008)
if i had watched the director's commentary feature, i would have been prepared for the ultimate letdown. it's pretty fucking obvious director pascal laugier is so far up his own ass. when you're that cocky, it's only you who thinks your film is that good. when you're that cocky, you're only making a film to amuse yourself and couldn't give a damn about the audience, so you make false promises, you know the usual, "this film is shocking, dangerous, powerful..." everything it is not.
but i hadn't watched the special features first. i'd only read the back of the box. (my friend elan had bought it, thinking he'd treasure it forever, but i'm afraid it's for sale if any one wants it. he's asking $10. drop me a line if you too, want your very own copy.) the back of the box promised an experience unlike any other, this was going to be the best horror film i'd ever seen, it was going to be groundbreaking, it was going to make me, and i quote, "question the world as [i] know it."
lofty, eh?
reviews that i've seen online, made the exact same promises. martyrs was the talk of the town. it was going to be gorey, but boy oh boy it was going to make you think. intellectual horror...
but the bottom line is this: if there were ever a movie made that deserved zero stars, it was this one. and i say that as a true and loyal horror fan. i've seen everything from spectacular, to experimental, to shockingly violent, to the low-budget flicks that couldn't even make it to the sci-fi (or excuse me, syfy) channel. and i tell ya, martyrs delivered nothing i'd already seen before.
if you want a girl gets revenge? it's been done.
if you want a seemingly physical manifestation of psychological issues? it's been done.
if you want torture scenes? it's been done.
if you want diabolical cult like organizations? it's been done.
if by groundbreaking, you meant snatching plots from other films, to craft a dung beetle's dream, then i guess it was groundbreaking.
if by groundbreaking, you meant having the usual female lead who makes such poor choices you're yelling at the screen (these characters have never once graced a horror screen, by the way), then mission accomplished.
lucie's friend anna, makes mistake after mistake right from the very beginning. romantically involved or not, there's no fixing a four person homicide. there's no, if we clean it up, everything will be okay. as soon as anna gets the call from lucie and she knows lucie's killed them all, she should have realized i'm dating a nut job, took her car, and headed for a police station. but of course that doesn't happen, and instead she even goes on to think she can help a severley abused captive. why yes, i am totally certified and knowledgable enough to try and care for this person. why yes, this torture bunker below this house does not require police attention AT ALL.
if by telling me this movie will make me think, did you mean make me wonder in agony how many minutes i had left to go?
did you mean make me struggle to grasp onto anything that had intellectual meaning?
is it a commentary on the fear of death, an anti-religous film aiming to dispell the myth behind martyrdom- if you abuse someone enough they'll roll up their eyes to heaven eventually, an exploration of what makes us human? the definition of martyr at the end, "witness." is the audience supposed to turn inward to ask why we just watched such a violent film, the psychological breakdown of a character, why humans have the capacity for such great evil?
i'm fucking drawing straws here, and baby, it's angel hair. because i got nothing unless you want to count a headache. but didn't i do a good job at making pretend this film has some substance?
the reviews also promised good special effects, and believable violence and abuse, and this film failed to deliver on these counts as well. obvious latex suits were obvious. and if you want me to pull me completely out of movie, throw in unbelievable medical trauma.
i am waaay too into real life medical shows and true crime to believe that someone could survive a 2 gage shot gun blast to the stomach. the scene with the injured mother hobbling around was actually when this movie started going down hill for me. there is no way a person could survive that. she was walking for fuck's sake. walking.
and then our heroine(?) get's flayed. yes, skin completely removed. she is completely exposed and she keeps on ticking! shock? infection? blood loss, any one?
who the hell can call that shit "realistic?!"
i don't know if i'm that desensitized that i could laugh my way through this movie, and the relentless onslaught of a meaningless torture scene, or if i'm just a horrible person. but what i do know is that this was a huge dissapointment. marytrs was a shit storm of a movie. it's praise undeserved. and i repeat, for sale for the low price of $10.
goddamn, it should have just been a creature movie. -______-