I write my reviews based on two factors, how much I enjoyed watching the movie and how much I enjoy thinking back about it. This movie I don't want to think back to.

This was well produced, well acted and the story is engaging.

But the content is just too horrific. I sat though Saw and Hostel they were OK. This I found really disturbing. I fast forwarded at one point and was privy to watching some poor devil receive a year long kick-in condensed into 6 minutes. As I am not a sado masachist I found these protracted scenes not only disturbing but dull.

I like horror, I like to be scared and when the lights come up think, 'wow, glad that wasn't me getting chopped up'. I feel like I am carrying this around with me.

If you like really gruesome stuff (note the actual gore isn't that bad) then go for it! You'll love this. But if you want to keep a handle on your humanity then stay blissfully unaware of this movie.

Making its Stateside debut, Pascal Laugier's "Martyrs" was the grand finale to a spectacular constellation of fine horror films. "Martyrs" however, is not like a "SAW" or "HOSTEL" in which there are creative forms of torture served for your viewing pleasure, this film has an art house feel to it that leads into the bowels of depravity. It's demonstrates how evil man can be for the share pleasure of scientific research. It reminded me of a brochure that I received depicting the horrors of how animals are slaughtered for human consumption. If that is a brochure you'd rather not digest before dinner, "Martyrs" is the type of film you may not want to view on a full stomach. Brilliantly executed in ways better described only as experimental, Pascal Laugier takes us to the end of the tunnel, the last stop, to a place where there is no longer any separation between humans and animals, predators or prey, it' a place so dark, you will no longer have to imagine for now it has been recorded on celluloid. All the "SAW" or "HOSTEL" or any other torture porn created to date has nothing on "Martyrs". Why? Because they French know their cinema business like no other. They leave nothing up to the imagination and nothing is too taboo for them whereas here in America, filmmakers tend to like to draw certain lines when it comes to making horror films for shock value. "Martyrs" is one of the few crossover films that could play at a horror film festival, as well as a intellectually artsy festival or a gay & lesbian festival alike. It covers the gamut in storytelling and that is what makes this film so powerful and so inherently haunting ,it will carve many putrid memories in your phsyque long after viewing. I would not recommend this film to folks with weak stomachs.

The teenager Lucie Jurin (Mylène Jampanoï) escapes from the industrial site Chamfors brutally, but not sexually, abused. The disturbed Lucie is sent to a school for abused children and she becomes the best friend of the girl Anna Assaoui (Morjana Alaoui)that protects her.

Fifteen years later, the deranged Lucie comes with a shotgun to the house of the Belfond family and executes Gabrielle, her husband and the siblings Marie (Juliette Gosselin) and Antoine (Xavier Dolan-Tadros). Then she calls Anna and tells her that the Belfond were the responsible for her suffering.

Anna drives to the address and finds the family murdered. Lucie is frequently wounded by a creature, actually a dead girl, who haunts her. Anna buries the bodies of the family to leave the place with Lucie but out of the blue, Lucie cuts her own neck and dies.

Anna snoops the house and finds an underground facility with a tortured teenager. Sooner she learns that the place is the base of an organization led by Mademoiselle (Catherine Bégin) that researches the afterlife martyring young girls.

"Martyrs" is a brutal and disturbing story of insanity with a deceptive open end. The French horror cinema is among the most brutal in the present days, and "Martyrs" is certainly one of the most violent and gruesome horror films ever made.

Unfortunately the inconclusive conclusion has many discussions in IMDb Board but none of them provides a satisfactory explanation to the ending. Therefore, the director Pascal Laugier has failed in his film since it the viewers are unable to understand it. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available