var galleryData = [{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>The film that had hardgore horror fans retching in the aisles at 2008’s London FrightFest is destined to become the most ferocious, uncompromising horror movie of 2009. French director Pascal Laugier’s dark, twisted spin on a traditional revenge story should carry a government health warning (that the BBFC passed it uncut is a minor miracle), but will not be quickly forgotten by those who can stand it.<\/p>","url":"2008/8/14/martyrs-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>Pascal Laugier's cinematic endurance test reworks the age old fairytale of innocents venturing into a strange house in the woods.  But, with tension and trauma turned up to 11 from the opening scene, this is more Grand Guignol than Brothers Grimm.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs8.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_8"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>Despite wishing to give audiences a visceral experience quite unlike any other, Laugier knows his horror cinema.  The remote house and shotgun fury harks back to the classic Peckinpah thriller Straw Dogs.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs9.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_9"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>Morjana Alaoui is Anna, the saint-like companion of the damaged Lucie who follows her friend into a nightmarish vortex of torture and sadism.  Despite, or maybe because, this is only Alauoi's second movie the physical and emotional intensity of her performance is draining.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs2.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_2"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>Of French and Chinese parents, Mylène Jampanoï has worked steadily in French TV and films since 2001.  UK audiences may have seen her alongside Jean Reno in The Crimson Rivers II and Gerard Depardieu in 36.  Even more than her co-star Alaoui, Jampanoï's performance in Martyrs is a textbook example of a fearless, painful performance.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs10.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_10"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>Director Laugier spares no-one from the anatomically correct atrocities depicted in Martyrs.  Like the work of Japanese wild man Takashi Miike, this is a wet movie, where blood, tears, sweat and spittle run deep.  Drawing on Asian horror movies, the terrifying figure here is a woman haunting the damaged the Lucie.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs7.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_7"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>Other influences on Martyrs are the grindhouse movies of the 1970s, the type of films known as Video Nasties in the dark, distant 1980s.  Martyrs bears the scratch marks of such gutcrunchers as The Last House On The Left and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and would have definitely wound up on the front pages of tabloids had it been released five years ago.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_1"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>French horror has a history of pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable on screen.  Way back in 1929, Spanish master Luis Bunuel made Un Chien Andalou in France, contributing to cinema the shocking, famous image of a woman's eye being sliced open with a razor blade.  For years UK audiences were denied the scene in Georges Franju's 1960 chiller Eyes Without A Face where a woman's face is surgically removed.  Martyrs is the latest example of this proud tradition.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs5.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_5"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>Like other great examples of Franco frighteners, much of Martyrs power comes from the rigourous technical excellence Pascal Laugier brings to the film.  Shooting in tight close-ups, pushing characters into the corners of the screen, splashing brains, blood and bone over the pristine white walls of the house Lucie turns into an abbatoir, the professionalism of the filmmaking makes it all the more powerful.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs3.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_3"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>Despite only showing at a market screening in Cannes 2008, Martyrs caused a furore on La Croisette.  It subsequently gained strong word of mouth status as it pummelled audiences at horror film festivals around the world.  Pascal Laugier has confirmed he is negotiating remake rights with American film companies, and is being touted as the director to helm the remake of that leather-loving, nail-headed demon classic, Hellraiser.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_4"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>That such an uncompromising film is Pascal Laugier's second movie is remarkable.  The soft-spoken French director debuted with haunted orphanage ghost story Saint Ange (aka House of Voices).  That film was dismissed by critics and moviegoers alike, making Martyrs almost an act of revenge on those who doubted the director.<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs11.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_11"},{"captionHeading":"<a href=\"http://movies.sky.com/review/martyrs\">Martyrs<\/a>","caption":"<p>Martyrs has a 52% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Any film this striking is going to divide critical opinion...<\/p><p>\"A work of not just ceaseless terror but also gravity and beauty\" - Jamie Graham, Total Film<\/p><p>\"Martyrs is an unforgettable (not necessarily a good thing) endurance test of a movie\" - Wendy Ide, Times Online<\/p><p>\"If you want to be put through the wringer by a film, make it this one\" - Anton Bitel, Channel 4 Film<\/p><p>\"You really don’t need to see this\" - Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph<\/p><p>\"The only negative thing about Laugier's film is that once you see it, you'll never be able to see it for the first time ever again... \" - Brad Miska, Bloody Disgusting<\/p>","url":"2009/3/25/martyrs6-2.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"martyrs_6 2"}];