20 Most Controversially Violent Films Ever Made

2. Martyrs (2008)

20.02.2013martyrs Martyrs is a film so excruciatingly violent, it will sear your soul. It starts off on a harrowing note and builds the violence from there up to teeth rattling proportions. Part of the New French Extremism, Martyrs really set the limit for violence. Two orphaned girls - Lucie and Anna share an unbreakable bond. Lucie was found collapsed outside a disused abattoir where she had been held captive and severely abused. Fifteen years later we cut to a seemingly normal family having breakfast when Lucie turns up and blows them all away with a shotgun. Apparently these people were her tormentors all those years ago. She calls a horrified Anna to the scene and they get to work on disposing the bodies. The mother is still alive and Anna tries to help her escape, Lucie is disgusted at her disloyalty. Visited by an imaginary demon woman who tortures her, Lucie kills herself as she realises she has lost her sanity. Anna is trying to tidy up the house when she comes across a secret dungeon with a severely tortured woman. She takes her above ground and tries to help her but the house is soon filled with people in black with guns who restrain her. They take her down to the dungeon and proceed to physically and psychologically torture her in an attempt to produce a martyr - someone who transcends reality through extreme suffering. I won't ruin the rest of the film for you but it is horrible to see the decline of the beautiful Anna into a pathetic wretch. The torture scenes are very hard to watch. The film was Bound to be controversial. I hear it is to be remade for the American market with a message of 'hope'. Be very prepared before you watch this film because it is very extreme and relentless in content.
 
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My first film watched was Carrie aged 2 on my dad's knee. Educated at The University of St Andrews and Trinity College Dublin. Fan of Arthouse, Exploitation, Horror, Euro Trash, Giallo, New French Extremism. Weaned at the bosom of a Russ Meyer starlet. The bleaker, artier or sleazier the better!