Carolime Time

Martyrs, the horror movie of the year, premiered at TIFF

Alright, so I watched a few movies this year at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). In total, I saw four. I don’t know how people could see more than that, considering it can get quite pricey and time consuming..I’d have to take the week off to fully appreciate it!

The only movie that really stood out and caught my eye was Martyrs, which was a psychological thriller gore fest of a movie. Taking equal amounts of excess from all, the movie is about two young women who share a very close and interdependent “friendship” (which can be easily mistaken for more, especially by yours truly;)). They embark on a quest to figure out the past of the girl with the more troubled past. Having escaped torture as a child, this character decides to take revenge on the perpetrators early in the movie. What follows is a lot of bloodshed, unabashed fleshy debris, and desperation. No one knows why the character was tortured, and whether her torture is a figment of her imagination or an actual memory of fact. This successfully keeps viewers on the edge of their seat. I spent the first 45 minutes of the viewing considering leaving.

Halfway through the film, a 90 degree switch takes place where directors incorporate the human infatuation with death and the afterlife. In a most gruesome and cringe-worthy manner, the film shows the extent to which a person can suffer physical and sometimes mental pain and helplessness. The movie does not even approach the tackiness or repetitiveness of other gore films I’ve seen. It plants butterflies in the viewer from the beginning. The one thing it lacks is an ending that leaves you wanting more. The butterflies settle, and there is only a slight veil of fear or discomfort that you’ll carry home. The film otherwise remains in the theatre. Though, if you read the news headlines, such instances as depicted in Martyrs are not completely implausible.