There is French genre of films that was given the name ‘New French Extremity’ (or New French Extremism or just plain old - New French Extreme) it was coined by a monthly film magazine called ‘Artforum’ by one of their critics called James Quandt. He collected a group of movies from a group of film directors that were extremely gory and horrific and labelled them with this name. Many movies cut away when ‘the act’ is happening well these movies did not cut away that much and you get to see most things up close such as a man having his foot hacked off at the ankle in Frontier a pregnant woman attacked repeatedly in the home invasion movie ‘Inside’ which at one point she was pinned to a wall by a pair of scissors through her hand.
One of the New French Extremity movies is ‘Martyrs’ and its top’s my list of movies with subtitles. I thought I’d start this review with an apology for putting this on this list and reviewing it here and I cannot think of a better way of starting than that. So, I am sorry and feel guilty for recommending this movie to friends as it is really not an easy watch, but I have to say I’ve watched some of this genre of movie before and it really doesn’t usually float my boat. Gore for the sake of gore is not my thing the other movies mentioned had a predictable story and there were clearly scenes for the sake of just repulsing the viewer. Don’t get me wrong this movie repulses the viewer just as much but it feels like they are doing it for a reason. It touches topics that should not be mentioned in conversations let alone be viewed on a screen but most of the very wrong subjects are discussed rather than viewed. However, this movie does not pull any punches when it comes to the gore and it’s in your face horror, but the story carries you through it. I will get through the “usuals” now – Released in 2008 and written and directed by Pascal Laugier. This movie was first shown at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival in May before the formal release in September. It was produced on $4.1m and went on to return $1.1m from the box-office which I assume was to do with the instant critics labelling it as gory and torture porn which is too nasty and gruesome and not to everyone’s taste. The scores back up my conflict of giving this a high score with IMDb giving it 7.1 out of 10 but Rotten Tomatoes going lower with a 62% but they really didn’t like the gore in this movie. There are two main stars in Morjana Alaoui and Mylène Jampanoï with anyone else appearance not really lasting awfully long on screen. The plot weaves all over the place and to try and give you the right idea without spoiling the story will maybe too difficult to do.
It begins with a young girl escaping from years of torture running through what looks like a disused trading estate. She is called Lucie and she goes into care where she makes friends with a truly kind young girl called Anna. Throughout her time at the orphanage, she is visited by a dark shadowy figure that continues to haunt her the whole time she is there. The police interview Anna in an attempt to get information from Lucie about who did this to her and make some arrests, but the information is flimsy and not enough to go on. We then jump fifteen years forward and the girls are all grown up. Lucie believes she has seen an image of her torturer’s in a newspaper article with a picture of a happy and quite young family. She decides it is time to go and kill them all even though the children do not appear old enough to be aware of anything when the previous events where deemed to have happened, 15 years previous. Her task appears to be done and she assumes her shadowy figure will leave her alone and allow her to move on with her life. No such luck as the creature appears soon after and attacks Lucie again in the house. When she has recovered enough, she phoned Anna to tell her where she was and what she had done. To escape, Lucie hides in a cupboard and Anna arrives just as Lucie’s attacker goes quiet. The girls are re-united before Lucie gets locked in the bathroom with her snarling and aggressive attacker again with no way to escape and no way Anna can save her. How is this going to end. Trust me not the way you are thinking if you have not seen the film and just reading this then you haven’t got a clue!
I have tried to describe this movie so many times and whoever I’ve been speaking to has leapt on one point that I made and reached a conclusion. I mention about the torture and Lucie breaking into a house after finding who she believed did it and they say oh it’s a revenge movie. Well, if that is the case then the revenge should be complete within 15 minutes of the beginning of the movie, then. Then you mentioned the ghostly figure haunting Lucie’s dreams and then her daytime as well and people go ‘oh it’s a ghost story, scaring someone into killing people,’ well nope that’s not the case either as this is resolved by the halfway mark. So, what is it then? It’s a horror movie of the highest order, you cannot put a label on this one without ruining it for others that haven’t seen it. It is scary and spooky and then gory and horrific then just plan horrible and a really tough to watch. It is plain nasty, but then again that is the case from the start to finish. This pulls no punches and is the most graphic movie I’ve ever seen and when Sarah appears my insides twist long before the actual scene that does make my internal organs twist and tie themselves in knots. This movie works and it works so much better than the American copied version from 2015 which tries to soften the blows but ruins the story. I get to this point and feel the need to answer the question of would I recommend watching and, on this occasion, I will say, no if you are not a horror fan and feel you can cope with the descriptions given above then simply give this the swerve. If after all these warning you still want to get involved with this movie then do so but heed the warning and think you can cope with the gore (oh its gore of the highest order) then please do watch this from behind a pillow and enjoy!
Next on the list is a fantasy adventure which was the first success which led to five more movies of the same ilk…
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