Martyrs (2008)

Martyrs is a French film from 2008 that I have heard wonderful things about. Martyrs is also a reminder that sometimes a mediocre movie with a novel concept can be wildly over praised.
Here’s the short version of my review: Martyrs has a really cool ending. Seriously, the ending is though-provoking, spooky, and disturbing. It will remind you of a Stanley Kubrick film. The ending, mind you, I don’t mean the whole movie. Unfortunately, everything leading up to the ending is dull, slow-paced, and derivative. I honestly cannot recommend this movie and I really have to wonder how so many people could’ve been so awestruck by it.

Short version of review over.

Martyrs is definitely a movie that you want to go into knowing as LITTLE about it as possible. Trust me, what little enjoyment there is to be had here will depend greatly on making sure that you do not spoil the movie for yourself beforehand. So, having said that, if you are planning on watching the movie, you probably don’t want to read any further.
Also, I am not going to go into the film’s story. One, because it would take way too long to describe and I don't really feel it's worth the time to go into it, and two, because even describing too much of the plot would ruin some of the surprise for anyone who watches this.

The movie has two distinct halves, and they do not gel at all. The first half of Martyrs and the second half of Martyrs feel like two completely different movies, in tone. Not a good thing, and makes for an emotionally incoherent film. Both halves of the movie feel very derivative, with the first half feeling like The Grudge mixed with the 1994 independent film Fun (which was about two teenage girls killing a woman in her home for no reason). The second half feels a hell of a lot like Hostel. Fans of Martyrs will vehemently deny the movie is at all like Hostel, but don’t listen to them. It’s a lot like Hostel. Add a healthy dollop of Hellraiser-type imagery and cap it off with a really cool, existential ending (the only good part of the movie), and you’ve got Martyrs.

The real problem here is when the second half begins, the movie does a complete 180 and changes in tone, in story, everything. The whole supernatural vs. psychological element from the first half is dropped completely. And the second half is very episodic and repetitive as well. It literally feels you start watching The Grudge and halfway through it suddenly turns into Hostel.

Here’s another big problem: the visions of the girl that haunt Lucie. Are we to believe that Lucie is simply delusional, and these visions are all in her head, a product of her guilt at leaving the girl behind? Or is she really being haunted by an actual ghost? Because the Grudge-like scenes where the “visions” attack her sure make it seem like a ghost and it’s NOT all in her head. She even gets wounds on her back that would be hard for her to self-inflict. If you’ve ever seen the ‘80s horror film The Entity, it’ll remind you of that. The movie never really tells us what the case is here. Not because the filmmakers were trying to be ambiguous I believe, but because they couldn’t make a decision themselves.

Also, we never get to know anything about the two main characters, which makes it hard for us to find them engaging.
My honest opinion? I think the writers had a pretty cool idea, but they knew it wouldn’t be enough to sustain a feature-length film, so they padded it out with all the Grudge stuff in the first half. They should’ve just made a short film of the second half instead. As it is, it’s a dull, mediocre movie with a great ending.