Review of Martyrs

...and what we're ultimately allowed to witness is, at its core, some pretty empty-headed, although visceral, existentially sadistic nonsense. Nonetheless, I can't deny that "Martyrs" packs a punch (several of them, in fact, to the face and gut, repeatedly, to its protagonist, after fooling us about who the real protagonist is). It's ultra-violence that Alex and his droogies would lap up like synthemesc milk-plus; presumably the audience is meant to as well. Aha, but auteur Pascal "The Tall Man" Laugier isn't through with us yet! After rubbing our collective noses in viscous pools of vengeance and hallucinatory blood guilt, he dials up the sadism a few more notches with a tiresome third act that trucks in absurdist fantasies of an elite cabal searching for proof of an afterlife through the inducement of a tortured martyr's vision of what can only be feebly represented by a coruscating white light.

What tripe.

Neither the acting chops of the two leads, which are considerable, nor the overall production values, including some very convincing Grand Guignol splatter and grue, can conceal the vacuous conceit of the film's plot nor the soul-less nihilism of its theme. "Martyrs" leaves its audience numbed by its brutality, but with precious little else, and ultimately comes off as mere torture-porn with a glib pretension of meaning. I won't say it's not worth watching, but be prepared to be unsatisfied. Mayhaps that was Laugier's intent; if so, his intentions were shallow and venal.