MovieChat Forums > Martyrs (2008) Discussion > This *could* have been so much worse

This could have been so much worse

posted 10 years ago by cryptobat
4 replies | jump to latest

I have seen many movies with horrible scenes in them. And quite honestly they held back on this one! I'm NOT saying it isn't disturbing, but I am saying its not torture porn like many other horror movies are. People will say it is, but I disagree. Torture yes, porn no.

For instance

When we see a man repeatedly hitting his victim, we don't hear a huge amount of 'bone crunching' audio that would turn many peoples stomachs. Nor is it ridiculously prolonged or with a huge amount of blood spatter. And we only see it to get the idea of the routine is happening.

There are only really 2ish scenes where we see a knife go into the body and its important for the storyline.

We don't see a needlessly long drawn out blood letting scene with the disgusting sound effects.

And most importantly we DON'T see any of the final act on screen. You *KNOW* what I mean, they could have but didn't.

Which makes me think this film has more artistic merit than a lot of 'needlessly gratuitous horror movies.
****spoilers

I wasn't expecting the ending. And to be picky nerd (sorry) but wouldn't we see her fat as well as just muscle. And I'm sure she would be dead at this point due to blood loss and shock.

[–] Don_Cheech 10 years ago

Yeah. It would take a master surgeon to keep her alive. Still scary AF

[–] xibalba33 10 years ago

I've said many times that this movie really isn't gratuitous at all. "Gratuitous" is a drastically misused word. Pretty much all of the violence in this movie served the story and they really didn't show us more than we needed to see. The final stage of Anna's torture is a great example of that. The only thing that may have been a bit gratuitous was when Anna was taking the plates out of the woman's head. Though, even that served an emotional purpose. It let us know just how far these people would go and prepared us for what was coming, while also driving home how kind and selfless Anna was.

"I would worry less about the gods and more about the fury of a patient man."

[–] tngrecuts 9 years ago

sometimes the unseen / unspoken things are more disturbing than anything they could have actually showed.

for example that thing they made the victims eat.. I imagined it was made at least in part from pee and feces which is why it was so disgusting for them to eat.

other things that remained unseen like the final surgery left more to the imagination which is worse than anything they could have shown

[–] jfuex 9 years ago

Agreed.

I avoided this movie for so long because of the hype about the violence. I didn't find it that bad compared to other horror films really.

It's too bad I held back for so long. This is a very solid horror film. Unless you have emotional triggers about women being abused, this is probably no more gory than any other horror movie.

The part that really got me wasn't gory at all:

When those people burst into the house and I started to to realize they aren't the good guys it felt like being at the top of the first big hill on a roller coaster. "The *beep* is ON. I can sympathize with this character. Do I really want to see the rest of this film based on what was implied happened to the other girls?"

Glad I hung in to watch the rest.