Editorials
[Butcher Block] A Nihilistic Study of Pain and Flesh in ‘Martyrs’
Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.
Writer/director Pascal Laugier was deep in the throes of clinical depression when penning the screenplay for this cornerstone of the New French Extremity movement in horror. Bordering on suicidal thoughts, it explains the bleak, nihilistic tone that permeates the film throughout. That he also wanted to keep horror audiences guessing also explains why Martyrs feels like multiple movies in one; each act so distinctly different from the other that it effectively keeps its audience off-kilter. What begins as a sort of haunted past filled with ghosts segues into shocking revenge until descending into a harrowing study of pain. It’s not an easy watch, and one that many French studios and actors gave wide berth to when Laugier was attempting to get this made.
If we’re measuring strictly by gallons of blood used, Martyrs isn’t nearly as bloody as most, though there is plenty. Yet its visceral examination of pain elicits such a strong physical response it’s still one of the more extreme entries in the genre. A large part of that can be attributed to the cold, clinical way Laugier homes in on his narrative. There’s pure shock in watching Lucie (Mylene Jampanoi) burst into a family home without warning and blow them all away with her shotgun. With her childhood friend Anna (Morjana Alaoui) as the audience proxy, it’s exacerbated with the realization that Lucie’s loose grip on reality may mean Lucie builds up an even higher death count of innocent bystanders in her quest to end her own suffering. Granted, we learn Lucie was more on the nose later, but Laugier toys with the psychological ramifications of Lucie’s PTSD for a while before really pulling the rug out from under the viewer for act 3.
With the end of the second act being marked by a brutal throat slashing, the final third of the film begins one long, drawn-out test to determine just how much pain the human body can endure. For the film’s characters, it’s quite a lot, and it’s uncomfortable to watch. From the other victims found in the basement dungeon, there’s an emaciated woman with metal stapled into her head. That a screwdriver is used to try to pry off the staples from the victim’s flesh means screaming and spraying blood. It’s only the beginning of the suffering that ensues, culminating in one gruesome flaying.
The special makeup and effects team delivered on gory effects that effectively sold Laugier’s traumatic ode to pain. Special effects supervisor Jacque Godbout (Scanners, Texas Chainsaw 3D), prosthetic and special makeup effects artist Manuel Beccaro (Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Army of Darkness, AVP: Aliens vs. Predator), visual effects supervisor Pierre-Simon Lebrun-Chaput (Arrival, Doomsday), and their teams crafted amazing effects that made the deaths and excruciating torture so horrific. There’s never been a flayed victim on screen quite like this before or since.
In horror, there’s often a level of detachment from the gore and viscera on screen due to the fantastical or supernatural. We root for werewolves, zombies, and various other monsters when they rip apart their victims; none of it is real. In Martyrs, there’s a sense of realism made even more grim by Laugier’s austere, anarchic tone. It’s ugly, it’s vicious, and it’s a wholly different kind of gore that’s not as easy watch, but it’s also clear why this ranks highly among French horror fans.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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