10 Horror Movies That Went Too Far

Returning to Pascal Laugier to shine a far more flattering light on his work, Martyrs is another of his movies that takes many steps outside of the average persons comfort zone, revelling in brutality to a degree that will stay with you long after watching. Where it might be easy to condemn movies for going too far when it comes to gore, there's an unspoken agreement between horror filmmakers and captive horror audiences that allows violence to be let off as part and parcel of the genre - it's to be expected, after all.

Martyrs, like many exploitation movies, takes this agreement and runs it so far into the ground it hits the core of the planet, definitely going too far in its exploration of how much pain a human body can really take. But whilst this whole experience feels like it pushes comfortable viewing to its limits, Laugier does something incredible by fixating the narrative around an experimental group that give purpose to suffering and make every brutal stroke of pain on screen actually mean something.

It's hard watching, but a rewarding, grotty piece of cinema for it in the process.