31. The Best Horror Film Ever Made You Haven’t Seen

Pascal Laugier went through a depressive episode before he made this; it may be one of the most Catholic movies ever made. It’s a movie about pain that so upset audiences that many walked out. It’s not an easy watch; it’s also a movie I’ve resisted, but this challenge finally got me to watch it.

Seriously: Wow.

Lucie Jurin (Mylène Jampanoï) barely escapes an abusive situation; at the orphanage, she bonds with another survivor, Anna Assaoui (Morjana Alaoui). Lucie has continued to abuse herself, seeing her self-mutilation as a demon attacking her. Years later, she decides to get revenge and kill a family she believes was part of her past. After she kills everyone with a shotgun — the movie does not shy from the gore — she calls Anna, who helps her clean up. The demon woman has also attacked Lucie, who needs to be stitched up. Some of the family survive, but Lucie follows them with a hammer and mutilates them; she runs outside and slashes her own throat.

The next morning, Anna learns that Lucie was right. The basement of the house contains photos of the abuse delivered there, as well as another captive. Soon, a group arrives, led by Mademoiselle (Catherine Bégin), who murders the other girl and explains that she has been seeking to create martyrs who will offer insight into the next world as they transcend due to the pain they have endured. None of their victims has ever been able to give them this insight.

As Anna is skinned while still alive, she enters an ecstatic state akin to that said to be created by saints. Mademoiselle asks her for the secrets of the next life; whatever she hears causes her to kill herself. The film ends with Anna staring into space, between life and death.

Laugier said of this movie, “Martyrs is almost a work of prospective fiction that shows a dying world, almost like a pre-apocalypse. It’s a world where evil triumphed a long time ago, where consciences have died out under the reign of money and where people spend their time hurting one another. It’s a metaphor, of course, but the film describes things that are not that far from what we’re experiencing today.”

As for the remake, directed by Kevin and Michael Goetz and written by Mark L. Smith, the original creator said, “I had a bad contract, I didn’t even get paid for it! That’s really the only thing I regret in my career: That my name is now associated with such a junk film, and I didn’t even get a cent for it! I tried to watch it, but only got through 20 minutes. It was like watching my mother get raped! Then I stopped. Life is too short. In the American system, a movie like Martyrs is just not possible – they saw my movie and then turned it into something completely uninteresting.”

I really don’t want to see that.

As someone who sat through church and heard about all the ways the martyrs died, the pain they endured and being told that this was a goal of worshippers, this movie truly hit me. It’s terrifying not for its gore but because it feels like this could happen.

You can watch this on Tubi.