Baron Mynd's Nasty Finds - "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover"

[sral]

Martyrs

I'd like to start off by saying that I'm a huge fan of the French horrors they've released of recent years (Haute Tension, Inside, Switchblade Romance etc) and so I've held on to Martyrs for a while before playing it almost in anticipation of the goodies it holds from what I'd heard...

The film is highly recommended by many fans of disturbing cinema, and ranked fairly highly on the majority of lists I've come across, but for me it just seemed to fall a little short of expectations.

Sure, the first half of the film is great as we get to see a little backstory of a girl who escapes being tortured etc and is eventually sent to an orphanage of some kind. Here she befriends another young girl. Fast forward fifteen years and they've located the house she was tortured in. They kill the family inside. It's clear the young girl who was tortured still has mental issues and she eventually kills herself, giving in to the image she has in her head of another girl she could have saved back when she was being tortured- but didn't.

The killing scenes are well done and graphic without being over the top. This isn't torture porn for the sake of it like some of the films contemporaries like Saw or Hostel etc - and that's a credit to the film.

However, as we near its final third the film almost seems like a separate film altogether from the one we saw at the beginning.

The second girl is captured, taken down to the basement where he friend had been tortured over a decade before, brutally beaten in unflinching scenes that are repeated again and again. The ladders descending to this basement by her attackers hit with a clunk to the floor when they drop which is especially well done.

Anyway, long story short, the basic premise is this group are torturing people to the point their bodies give up and the victims reach a state of ecstasy - somewhere between life and the afterlife. The girl is later flayed until her skin is gone from her body apart from around her face. It's exceptionally well done and again, deserves commending.

The girl, in this euphoric state, murmurs some words to a lady known only as Mademoiselle (who seems to be the chief ring leader of this cult) which eventually leads to the Mademoiselle shooting herself dead rather than revealing to the rest of the cult what it was the young victim had said.

It's here the film ends, somewhat unapologetically, and is open for the viewer to interpret as to what the young flayed girl said. I've read a few plausible suggestions online, but I don't buy them.

I won't spoil it for anyone that thought of checking this out. It's a good movie, just not one id readily place so highly on my Most Disturbing List is all. If you're interested in the recent resurgence of French Horrors of the past few years, a fan of disturbing cinema, or just looking to see how far you can pushed - it's well worth a watch, even the casual viewer may find it worth their time as this is a good film with some great cinematography and not overdone with regards to the gore etc.

I don't know if it's for everybody, but it's certainly not a bad film by any stretch. Well worth a watch, just not that highly ranked in my opinion when judged against some of the other 'sickening/disturbing' films in my collection is all.