MARTYRS (2008)

Note: from Oct 2021-June 2022, the podcast was known as 21 Jump Scare and was organized in a slightly different fashion, with different awards.

Background (spoiler-free) 0:00-12:58
Discussion (spoiler-heavy) 12:59-51:50
Awards (spoilers for days) 51:51

Director Pascal Laugier
Screenplay Pascal Laugier
Featuring Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï, Catherine Begin

Opened: September 3, 2008
Budget: 3.4 million euros (around $4 million)
Gross: $1.1 million

SPOILER-FREE SYNOPSIS

The film begins with Lucie, a child who has clearly been abducted, beaten, and starved, escaping from a warehouse where she was kept for an undisclosed period of time. Years later, Lucie is in a hospital for abused and abandoned children, where she meets another child, Anna. The two become friends and roommates and perhaps more but Lucie is haunted by ghosts of her past and engages in a devastating pattern of self-harm. 15 years later, we find ourselves in a beautiful, modern home in the woods, witnessing a fairly typical breakfast scene with two well-off parents and their two bratty, accomplished kids. After the meal, the doorbell rings, and the father goes to answer the door. Unfortunately, waiting patiently outside the home is Lucie, who has come to take revenge on what she believes are her former captors. And thus begins an odyssey for Anna which begins with cleaning up Lucie’s mess and ends with a discovery that will lead to her own undoing, as she realizes she is anything but alone in this house in the woods.

EPISODE NOTES

Music from Martyrs by Alex and Willie Cortes.

TRAILER

AWARDS

The Tom Six Award for Most Disturbing Scene
Bradford: Anna’s removal of the prisoner’s head apparatus
Eric: Anna’s removal of the prisoner’s head apparatus

The Seth Brundle Award for Most Likable Character
Bradford: Anna
Eric: Anna

The Ellen Ripley Award for Character that Most Deserved to Live
Bradford: Anna
Eric: Lucie

The John Doe Award for Character that Most Deserved to Die (and Does)
Bradford: Father of happy nuclear family at beginning
Eric: (Original) imprisoned woman in basement

The Gaspar Noe Award/Ken Russell Award for Most Gratuitous Screen Moment
Bradford: None
Eric: None