Movies
[Review] ‘Martyrs’ is an Impassioned But Watered-Down Remake
It is difficult to review Martyrs without comparing it to Pascal Laugier’s phenomenal 2008 film of the same name. So let’s just get this out of the way: Kevin and Michael Goetz’s (Scenic Route) remake is a watered-down version of the original that is nowhere near as visceral, affecting or memorable. Martyrs 2016 is 10-15 minutes shorter than Martyrs 2008. At a mere 86 minutes, the film feels rushed in many places and doesn’t take some of the necessary beats that the original did in order to deliver a real sucker punch.
Where Laugier’s film was bleak and open-ended, The Goetz Brothers’ remake is more hopeful and features a less ambiguous conclusion. Martyrs 2008 was poignant. Martyrs 2016 is cathartic. The original was less a film and more an experience. The remake is “just” a film. With that out of the way, let’s focus on what the remake gets right. Taken on it’s own (or if you have never seen the original film), Martyrs 2016 is a passable thriller with an emotional core at its center that will still satisfy some viewers.
When Lucy (Ever Prishkulnik) escapes from a group of people who have been torturing her, she is sent to a Catholic orphanage where she befriends Anna (Elyse Cole). Over the years, the two girls become best friends as Lucy deals with the psychological ramifications resulting from her time spent in captivity. 10 years later, a now grown Lucy (Troian Bellisario, a far cry from her role on Pretty Little Liars) believes she has found the people responsible for her torture and she means to make them pay, with or without Anna (Bailey Noble, True Blood).
Plot-wise, the first act sticks pretty closely to the original, matching it scene-for-scene. It is at the end of the first act that screenwriter Mark L. Smith (Vacancy, and co-writer of The Revenant) takes the film in a completely new direction. It is this aspect of the film that is admirable. Knowing that he would be unable to replicate the genius of Laugier’s film, Smith has opted to look at the philosophical approach from a different angle, and while it may not be completely successful, you’ve got to give him credit for trying something different.
In the interest of keeping the film fresh for viewers who have never seen the original (are there horror fans out there who haven’t seen the original?), I won’t delve too much more into the plot. Just be aware that the second half of the film is quite different from the second half of the original.
One smart decision was casting TV starlets Bellisario and Noble in the lead roles. These two actresses have proven themselves on the small screen (Bellisario more so than Noble, but I digress) and they each do commendable jobs in Martyrs. Bellisario delves into the mind of an unhinged character with aplomb and Noble plays the skeptical friend to great effect. Kate Burton (playing a somewhat more malicious version of her Scandal counterpart) shows up later in the film and brings the necessary amount of menace to the proceedings.
The film’s limited budget becomes apparent in its numerous attempts at CGI. Those moments are few and far between, but when CGI effects rear their ugly head, they are not good. Since the film is far less violent than the original film, there aren’t many opportunities for practical effects. That being said, the few practical effects in the film are well done (and don’t worry, a certain flaying is still featured, albeit not as extensively).
As mentioned earlier, fans of the original may be put off by the toned-down violence. This is understandable, and it does hurt the film in some ways, since the violence was so iconic in the 2008 version. Though the violence in the original never felt gratuitous. It was always serving the story. That is not always the case with Martyrs 2016.
Martyrs, surprisingly, isn’t a complete misfire. It is bold enough to go in a different direction than the original, though it certainly doesn’t best that film. While it may not completely succeed in everything it attempts to do, it’s still enough of a different beast to merit a rental.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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