A young girl named Lucie escapes from a hellish nightmare of torture and depravity. She meets a friend, Anna, who stands by her as the two grow up. But Lucie's scars are mental as well as physical and 15 years after her escape, she seeks revenge on her captors. Anna is soon dragged into the situation and what she finds makes her own abusive childhood seem like a walk in the park.
I love horror movies. I like many movies that have been lumped into the "torture porn" category (even though I hate that term) and I like horror movies that can disturb me and make me think with barely an ounce of gore. But I felt more manipulated than moved by Martyrs. The story of Lucie getting revenge on her abusers and dealing with the scars of her past while unraveling the mystery of her capture could have made for an interesting movie, but the Lucie part is over fairly quickly. And I don't really want to give too much away but the Anna part of the story seems to go out of its way to be needlessly "unpleasant" for a motive that just didn't work on me. I appreciate the movie for trying to be different (and succeeding at that) but in the end, I was bored, frustrated, and disappointed.
ff
I love horror movies. I like many movies that have been lumped into the "torture porn" category (even though I hate that term) and I like horror movies that can disturb me and make me think with barely an ounce of gore. But I felt more manipulated than moved by Martyrs. The story of Lucie getting revenge on her abusers and dealing with the scars of her past while unraveling the mystery of her capture could have made for an interesting movie, but the Lucie part is over fairly quickly. And I don't really want to give too much away but the Anna part of the story seems to go out of its way to be needlessly "unpleasant" for a motive that just didn't work on me. I appreciate the movie for trying to be different (and succeeding at that) but in the end, I was bored, frustrated, and disappointed.
ff