10 Scariest Uses Of Make-Up In Horror Movies

Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs is among the most beautifully brutal entries in the 21st Century New French Extremism movement. Although the first two-thirds or so—during which a woman named Lucie tracks down and then murders a seemingly affable couple (and their children) for the various tortures she endured as their child prisoner fifteen years prior—are disconcerting, it’s the latter portion of the film that’s hardest to stomach.

In-between finishing her mission and committing suicide, Lucie called her friend Anna to come over and help clean up the evidence. Sadly, members of the secret society to whom the couple belonged also show up and ultimately imprison Anna in the basement, with their leader—Mademoiselle—explaining that Anna’s suffering will produce transcendental glimpses into the beyond.

What follows is utterly unbearable: Anna’s body and spirit are repeatedly broken down in one instance of abuse after another. Shortly thereafter, she’s almost unrecognizable, yet still not completely gone. To push her over the edge, her captors skin her alive, with only her face retaining any flesh. That consequent grotesqueness, matched with the look of awe-struck abandonment on Anna’s face, is an emotionally harrowing snapshot of human depravity that’s impossible to forget.