Good evening, creeps! I am afraid that tonight is your unlucky night. Because the thirteenth day of October has an utter shock in store for that system of yours that you arrogantly assume has been finely tempered by years of horror fandom. These two movies are rough and will penetrate any defenses you have in place.
One takes us back to the French quarters of extreme horror, and the other is the evil grandaddy of found footage fear flicks! Abandon all delicate natures, ye who enter here…
Martyrs (2008)
And here we are! Some of you out there have already seen this film, and I can sense many of your uncomfortable eyes shifting away from its name, afraid to even look at it. Because you already know what’s waiting for the newcomers with us tonight. This film is what separates the horror diehards from the true blue maniacs.
French director Pascal Laugier was at a low point in his life with depression that bordered on thoughts of self-termination. After seeing Eli Roth’s 2005 torture porn classic, Hostel, he set out to make his own movie about suffering, an outlet to channel that bad energy. This disturbing masterwork is the end result of that cathartic purge. From 2008, this is Martyrs…
The year is 1971, and young Lucie Jurin (Jessie Pham) escapes confinement from an abandoned slaughterhouse after missing for one year. Lucie’s trauma has left her unable to explain to the authorities exactly what happened to her, and she’s taken to a youth home where she meets her soon-to-be best friend, Anna (Erika Scott).
She eventually comes out of her shell for Anna and tells her about what happened while she was held in that slaughterhouse for a whole year, which includes being terrorized by a shadowy, rasping female figure (Isabelle Chasse) who mutilates Lucie and is (apparently) the vengeful spirit of one of her fellow captives. She begs Anna not to tell anyone and her friend agrees.
Fifteen years go by and Lucie (now played by Mylène Jampanoï) shows up at the door of the Belfond household one lovely morning while they’re having breakfast, shotgun in hand. She starts bucking until the whole family is dead and then calls Anna afterward. She arrives to the crime scene and is obviously horrified by what she sees.
Lucie tells her that the Belfonds were part of the group who kidnapped her all those years ago and that she recognized them after seeing their faces on the TV. The female figure reappears to attack Lucie, and that’s when Anna finds out the sporadic spirit is just a hallucination, and that her bestie is actually a homicidal lunatic who has been mutilating herself this whole time.
Where it goes from there, you’ll have to see for yourself. Let’s just say that it does not end well for anyone, and this includes the viewer. It is harsh, unflinching, and will be seared into the mind for all time. All the performances are great, and one cannot help but feel sympathy for each character – which makes it all the more difficult to helplessly watch as their fates unfold in brutal fashion.
Martyrs came out during the start of the New French Extremity movement, but Laugier rejects that label for his film. Regardless of what anyone says, this film is French, and it’s as extreme as it gets. Not only is Martyrs one of the best horror films of the 21st century, but it will go down as one of the greatest of all time.
Walk the path to martyrdom over on TUBI, and keep doubting, but see if you can sit through the trailer first:
Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
If the last feature didn’t chase most of you out of here, this closer is sure to clear the rest of the room. Here is the legendary 1980 blood feast, Cannibal Holocaust, by the late Duke of Controversy, Ruggero Deodato. I don’t mean to gatekeep, but every horror nerd worth their creepy salt is at least familiar with this notorious classic, even if they don’t have the spine to watch it themselves – not that anybody can judge them too harshly.
This movie is pretty rough, and it’s like a hot needle to the soft eyes of sensitive viewers. To anyone who can’t handle the sight of animals being hurt, now is the time to get off my ship because we’re heading to the Green Inferno, and there will be no turning back.
An anthropologist from NYU, Professor Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman), sets forth to the South American rainforest to track down a film crew who went missing. They were last seen leaving the Colombian town of Leticia, which sits deep in the jungle on the border between Brazil and Peru. These cocky kids were there to document the existence of cannibal tribes in the more unhospitable parts of the jungle. He arrives to meet the distrustful tribespeople and even helps them engage in some warfare with an enemy tribe.
Professor Monroe earns their trust, and finds out that the film crew had got on the bad side of these man-eating jungle dwellers, and paid the ultimate price. He finds their bones hanging up in a morbidly awesome fashion with their undamaged film equipment on the ground beneath it, and that the tribes were doing rituals to cleanse the jungle of their spirits. After trying out the most man-made delicacies, Monroe is allowed to leave with the doomed crew’s footage.
He gets the film back to New York and presents it to his colleagues. It details the bogus journey of top a-hole Alan Yates (Gabriel Yorke) the director, his unfortunate girlfriend and “script girl” Faye Daniels (Francesca Ciardi), and his equally stupid friends, Jack Anders (Perry Pirkanen) and Mark Tomaso (Luca Giorgio Barbareschi) who work as the cameramen. I’m not going to spoil the moronic choices these people make that leads them to their hideous fates, but let’s just say that it’s hard to feel sorry for them (especially after what they do to poor Mr. Turtle).
Their first mistake was going there, and the second one was not leaving when it was obvious they were not welcome in those parts, but they really bone themselves (BUH-DUM-TSSS) by pissing off the local natives. Even though the consequences of their deeds aren’t without merit, it’s still not pretty to watch.
Cannibal Holocaust triggered the whole planet upon its release. It was banned in multiple countries, and Deodato was even facing murder charges unless he proved that the actors were still alive. This movie continues to upset people, and it remains the best “Found Footage” horror movie of all time. It’s available for free on Peacock if you have the guts to watch it.
Or be a wimp, and just watch the trailer:
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