What does the ending of ‘Martyrs’ really mean?
Having exhausted the supply of classic horror movies to remake, Hollywood swiftly turned its attention to overhauling more recent examples that gained fame and notoriety in equal measure, with Kevin and Michael Goetz’s Martyrs premiering just seven years after Patrick Laugier’s original.
Both versions follow roughly the same plot, with a woman enlisting the help of a friend to track down the family who imprisoned her as a child and subjected her to endless torture, with the quest for revenge unwittingly leading them down a darker and even more depraved rabbit hole than first imagined.
There are several differences in how the narrative unfolds, but the crux remains the same; the nefarious family who kept Lucie (in both iterations) prisoner have taken it upon themselves to try and determine whether or not there’s life after death, and the best way for them to carry out this experiment is to inflict reprehensible pain and physical damage upon their captives to see if they can exist in a place between the two worlds.
In the original, it is the secondary protagonist, Anna, who reaches the final stage after being flayed to within an inch of her life. By surviving, she reaches a higher level of consciousness, leaving the cabal desperate to know what happened. Anna whispers it into the ear of Catherine Bégin’s Mademoiselle, who asks one of her followers if he can imagine what comes after death. When he responds in the negative, she commits suicide via handgun.
In the remake, Lucie experiences the final trial, but she whispers her truth to Anna. In much the same way as Laugier’s progenitor, the 2015 Martyrs ends with a priest shooting himself to leave the revelation unsaid. It’s as ambiguous as it is ominous, but a couple of different interpretations can be drawn.
At the end of the day, though, the ending of Martyrs is intentionally meaningless. Either the tormentors have been told that there’s nothing after death to render their entire existence pointless and futile, or discovering what lies beyond is something that must be found as fast as possible, which could explain why, in both versions, the people who discover the secrets immediately kill themselves.
Mademoiselle telling her believers to “keep doubting” hints that the uncertainty is what keeps them going, whether the afterlife is or isn’t real, leaving it entirely in the mind of any given viewer as to where the truth really lies.
Who are the “martyrs” of the movie?
Although the story zeroes in on two characters above all others, the ‘martyrs’ of the title are, generally speaking, anyone who found themselves subjected to the experiments of the cabal during their decades-long reign of terror in trying to unspool the mysteries of what happens after death.
Anna is the primary martyr of the original, while both Anna and Lucie fulfil that remit in the remake. By its definition, a martyr is someone who dies for their beliefs, which means that it also technically applies to Mademoiselle and the priest, respectively, both of whom instantly kill themselves after being told what awaits them on the other side.
How does the 2015 Martyrs differ from Pascal Laugier’s original French version?
The most notable difference between both versions of Martyrs comes through the character of Lucie, who slits her own throat in the original before the midway point of the story, leaving Anna to investigate the shady goings-on alone. In the remake, both serve as co-leads and are key parts of the narrative right up until the final scene.
The most obvious difference is that 2015’s Martyrs is terrible, something Laugier had no control over. Describing his regrets at the fact his name “is now associated with such a junk a film,” the filmmaker told Filmstarts he couldn’t make it past the 20-minute mark of the remake, lamenting on how Hollywood “saw my movie and then turned it into something completely uninteresting.”
Is Martyrs the best French horror movie?
The 21st century proved to be fertile ground for French horror, and Martyrs is definitely up there among the best the country has ever produced, although it’s entirely subjective as to whether or not it can be called the nation’s greatest-ever tale of terror.
France has a long and storied history of crafting top-tier nightmares, ranging from classics like Eyes Without a Face and Diabolique to more recent titles, including High Tension, Inside, Raw, and Titane. In terms of ambition, gruesomeness, and heart-pounding tension, though, Martyrs is comfortably among the top tier.
