Some movies don’t need remakes. Others shouldn’t have them. And then there’s Martyrs (2015) — a film that makes you question not only why it exists, but why you continue to.
Directed by Kevin and Michael Goetz, this American remake of Pascal Laugier’s 2008 French horror classic is the cinematic equivalent of microwaving fine cuisine: it’s recognizable, it’s hot, and yet somehow it tastes like melted plastic.
The original Martyrs was raw, uncompromising, and emotionally devastating — a gut-punch of existential horror about pain, transcendence, and the human condition. The remake, on the other hand, feels like it was made by people who watched the original through a pillow fort while sipping almond milk.
The Plot: Martyrdom for Dummies
The story is (in theory) the same. Little Lucie escapes from a secret torture chamber where she’s been abused by unknown captors. Years later, she tracks down the people she thinks did it — a suspiciously normal suburban family — and blows them away with a shotgun. Then her friend Anna shows up, finds a secret basement, and discovers there’s an underground cult torturing women to glimpse the afterlife.
That’s the summary. The experience is like watching a Lifetime Original Movie about trauma and sisterhood that accidentally wandered into the horror aisle.
In the original, violence wasn’t just gore for gore’s sake — it meant something. It made you feel sick. Here, it’s sanitized, glossy, and polite. It’s “torture horror” with a PG-13 heart. The remake wants to shock you, but it’s so afraid of offending anyone that it feels like a Christian youth group adaptation of Saw.
The Direction: From Brutal to Bland
Let’s talk about the Goetz brothers, who direct this film as if they were filming a commercial for trauma counseling. Everything that made Laugier’s Martyrs so haunting — the claustrophobic camera work, the raw emotional realism, the suffocating sense of despair — is gone, replaced by soft lighting, quick edits, and Hollywood sheen.
This isn’t Martyrs. This is The CW Presents: Existential Pain!
The film’s most infamous sequence — the extended period of relentless torture that breaks down both the audience and the character — has been chopped down to something that looks like a mildly unpleasant week at a spa. Anna gets slapped around a few times, maybe punched once, and then bam — enlightenment achieved!
If martyrdom were this easy, every Monday morning commuter would qualify.
The Acting: The Best Part (But That’s Not Saying Much)
Troian Bellisario (Lucie) does her damnedest to inject some real emotion into this mess, and to her credit, she’s the film’s one saving grace. She’s intense, committed, and way too good for the material. You can almost see her thinking, “I got out of Pretty Little Liars for THIS?”
Bailey Noble, as Anna, tries to play the role with empathy and strength, but the script gives her about as much depth as a puddle. In the original, Anna’s endurance and compassion made her transformation horrifying and transcendent. In this version, she’s mostly just… tired.
And then there’s Kate Burton as Eleanor, the leader of the cult. Burton is a wonderful actress who apparently thought she’d signed on for a Downton Abbey spinoff. Her scenes of pseudo-spiritual monologuing about pain and enlightenment are delivered with the conviction of someone explaining tax deductions.
The Horror: Declawed, Defanged, and Depressing (But Not in the Right Way)
Here’s the central sin of Martyrs (2015): it doesn’t understand horror. The French version was a descent into hell — literal and emotional. It made you confront suffering, empathy, and the grotesque beauty of pain.
The remake? It’s a jump-scare buffet for people who think The Nun was too hardcore.
The violence is neutered, the tension nonexistent, and the atmosphere as sterile as a dentist’s waiting room. There’s blood, sure, but none of it matters. The torture scenes look like a Halloween photoshoot gone wrong. Even the creature hallucination — a terrifying manifestation of Lucie’s trauma in the original — now looks like a cosplayer who got lost on the way to Comic-Con.
Instead of existential dread, we get mild discomfort. Instead of transcendence, we get exposition. It’s not horror; it’s horror-flavored diet soda.
The Tone: Martyr-Meets-Made-for-TV
The Goetz brothers seem unsure what movie they’re making. Is it a serious meditation on trauma? A supernatural thriller? A slasher? A feminist allegory? Or just a Blumhouse tax write-off?
The tone lurches like a drunk on roller skates. One moment it’s trying for moody psychological dread, the next it’s throwing in heroic rescues and sentimental flashbacks. The ending, which in the original film was ambiguous, devastating, and unforgettable, has been swapped for something resembling a Disney Channel moral.
Anna escapes! The cult dies! The power of friendship triumphs! Roll credits!
It’s like they saw Martyrs (2008) and said, “You know what this needs? Hope.”
The Cult: New Age Nihilists Anonymous
The secret cabal in Martyrs should be terrifying — fanatics so obsessed with glimpsing the afterlife that they literally flay women alive. In the remake, they look like a PTA meeting for suburban satanists.
Their “philosophy” is delivered in long, awkward monologues about the soul and transcendence, the kind of thing you might hear from your Uber driver if you mention you once took yoga. Kate Burton delivers her lines with conviction, but it’s impossible to take her seriously while she’s surrounded by extras who look like they wandered in from an anthropology conference.
Even their lair feels cheap — more “Airbnb basement” than underground chamber of horror.
The Cinematography: The Bright Side of Death
Visually, the movie is too pretty for its own good. Every frame looks polished, color-corrected, and safe. There’s no grime, no ugliness, no atmosphere. It’s Martyrs through an Instagram filter.
The original looked like it was shot on expired film stock inside an actual nightmare. This one looks like an ad for minimalist interior design. Even the gore looks oddly tasteful — as if the camera’s afraid to get its hands dirty.
You can practically smell the hand sanitizer between takes.
The Message: Martyrs for the Masses
The French Martyrs was about transcendence through pain — an unflinching exploration of what it means to suffer and what lies beyond. It was bleak, brutal, and impossible to forget. The American remake, on the other hand, seems to think martyrdom is about teamwork, emotional healing, and girl power.
It’s Eat, Pray, Flay.
Gone is the existential terror, replaced by a tidy message about overcoming trauma and saving your friends. Apparently, enlightenment no longer requires torture — just a good heart and a shotgun.
The Ending: Martyr Lite™
The original ended with a woman reaching enlightenment so profound that even the cult leader couldn’t handle it. It was haunting. Ambiguous. Philosophical.
In this version, the priest blows his brains out because… why not, I guess? Anna shoots everyone, hugs her friend, and we fade out on a heroic swell of music, as if she’s just completed a particularly difficult escape room.
It’s martyrdom for people who need a participation trophy.
Final Verdict: Suffer Not
Martyrs (2015) is what happens when you take a masterpiece of nihilistic art-house horror and run it through the Hollywood recycling machine. It’s tamer, prettier, and utterly pointless — a remake that strips away the original’s skin and then forgets why it did it.
It’s not shocking, not profound, and not worth your time unless you’re conducting a study on how to ruin good ideas.
Rating: 1.5 cultists out of 5.
The only thing this movie tortures is the audience.
