I do not understand the popularity of the Saw/Hostel type of films. What is the use of watching another film in which the director shows himself sicker than his predecessor? Why do scriptwriters try to overmatch eachother in gory torture? What is more: why would anybody want to watch such a film? Unfortunately I picked out one such title…
The first hour of “Martyrs” is a very bloody horror/thriller in which a troubled girl hunts down her kidnappers together with a friend. All slashing in detail, but the good portion of Japanese-style darkness makes this part ‘doable’. Then the last hour is one big torture scene and I kept wondering what the use of it all is. At some point I started to predict the next method, being right I would turn the film off as both awfull and boring. I was never right though… There is a very thin veil of ‘philosophy’ which the director seems to use to ‘justify’ the cruelty of his film, but which actually makes it worse.
Where it not for the first part of this film which has a few very atmospheric scenes, this film would have come somewhere below 1 out of 5 stars. Now I come to 1,5. Better spend your time on another film.
