Martyrs

First off, if any film should come with trigger warnings this one should, so be advised if brutality, imprisonment & torture disturb you. I will not spoil anything, but I will comment on what I just saw. "Martyrs" is touted as a new advent in horror, and in a way it is. There is an ambition to the plot that could have made the film truly surreal, almost magical. As it is, this film for me was a noble failure. The film is really two shorts only loosely connected together. The first half I found brilliant, compelling, and astonishingly well acted, which really sold it for me. But the second half, which gave birth to the revelatory concept behind all we had seen and will see, fell flat. I did not believe the premise, not did I believe how they achieved it. As for the brutality of it, I've honestly seen worse. It's hard to watch at times, but all in all everything that is done serves the story, so it is not gratuitous. I think "Irreversible" and "Visitor Q" disturbed me worse, and "Irreversible" is a brilliant, glorious, cerebral movie to boot. I wish I could say the same about "Martyrs", but, for me, it was just average. 3/5

Martyrs on Netflix