10 More Body Horror Fates Worse Than Death

3. Martyrs - Pushed As Far As Humanly Possible

Color Out of Space
Wild Bunch

Pascal Laugier's Martyrs is a unique movie, in that it's unrelentingly gruesome yet genuinely of high quality.

More often than not, grim pictures tend to pile on the gore and twisted happenings as a way to paper over the cracks of a weak story. With Martyrs, though, said gore and twisted happenings are pivotal to establishing the story and driving that narrative forward.

For Morjana Alaoui's Anna, she has a fate that is very much worse than death. In fact, it's basically one step away from death and just shy of getting over that particular eerie finishing line.

Having discovered an underground society who are on the quest to discover and capture true euphoria, Anna becomes their latest test subject. The logic of said society is that they want to push the human body and spirit as far as possible in the pain stakes, which in theory should cross over from pain to ultimate pleasure.

What these means for Anna is that she's tortured and then brutally skinned alive, pushed to the most extreme levels of pain - but not quite far enough to die.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.