Hooptober 12: 27/31

As far as “reprehensible movies” go, this one certainly earns its reputation, although the reviews and its grouping with other traumatising films fully prepared me to see the worst stuff I could imagine, and thankfully it wasn’t as bad. 

What I expected was a gruesome and mean-spirited film along the lines of Hostel or The House That Jack Built. Gruesome it was, but the violence is always coated in a script that leaves you guessing and wanting to see where it goes next. Perhaps that’s me, but I find gore for the sheer sake of it much more condemnable because it’s hedonistic; every violent act in the film turns out to be motivated, terrible as those motivations are.

Martyrs is also a film compassionate to its subjects, which softened the blows for me. Where the other films above seem to show their excruciating scenes because their directors get a kick out of the misery, here we are invited to partake in the titular role. It’s a true nihilism that leaves you with the best and worst that humanity can muster. Nietzsches’ Übermensch didn’t get there by being edgy.