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Martyrs

  • Film
The 100 best horror films, horror movies, martyrs
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Time Out says

If the idea of seeing a young woman having metal rivets removed from her cranium makes your heart skip a beat, you won’t want to miss this baroque ‘torture porn’ hope-sapper from French director Pascal Laugier which is cut from a similar, po-faced and unrelentingly nauseating cloth as the ‘Hostel’ films and last year’s ‘Frontière(s)’.

It opens on a young girl fleeing mysterious captors who have been using her as a human pin-cushion in their dank basement. Flash forward to the present day, and she’s as mad as hell, carrying a shotgun and out for bloody retribution. The stylishly mounted first half zips along at a rate of knots while the gruesome make-up work will keep your gag reflex in violent spasm. However, it turns out that Laugier’s skills as a director fall squarely in the action department, as an ill-advised mid-point U-turn delivers a talky, depressing and insanely pretentious take on mortality and human experimentation.

Written by David Jenkins

Release Details

  • Rated:18
  • Release date:Friday 27 March 2009
  • Duration:95 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Pascal Laugier
  • Screenwriter:Pascal Laugier
  • Cast:
    • Morjana Alaoiu
    • Catherine Begin
    • Mylene Jampanoi
    • Mike Chute
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