Puke Flick Double Feature - Martyrs, The Killing Room

Welcome to my life. Day 5790. Greetings my Yodeling Yaks. So I just watched like the scariest film I've ever seen. I'm actually kind of afraid to go to bed. I keep thinking some freaky doctor is like going to climb into my window and tie me up and nail some metal helmet to my head! Aahh! What was that?!

It was nothing... I think. Just the wind. Anyway, so Raymond finally gave up Watchmen and we were able to get a couple of DVDs on MY list and we got The Killing Room and Martyrs; two seriously demented movies. And they're also kind of similar. They're both about forced martyrdom, although radically different kinds of martyrdom. Part of the fun of both these flicks is the plot revelations and unfortunately I have to reveal them to discuss them so if you haven't seen them, you might not want to rent them before continuing.


The Killing room deals with our crazy ass government trying to create our own suicide bombers. This is kind of a weird idea and I don't know if it really makes all that much sense. I mean, I never understood the need for suicide bombers anyway. Granted, they were pretty effective on 911 but most of the time couldn't you just like use a remote or something? It's always seemed to me like kind of a silly way to go.

So the way they make people martyrs is they put them in this room which is... the killing room, literally. It's kind of Sawish without the cool gadgets (which is like the best part of the Saw movies). It's pretty cheap. I mean, nobody's going to win an Oscar for set decorations. The room is really white and sterile. Kind of looks like something out of a nuthouse. And these people are suckered in there thinking they're going to be part of some psychological study. And one by one they're killed off. This is done, apparently to figure out which one of them is willing to sacrifice himself for the others. At least that's how I understood it. The actors are all pretty good like Timothy Hutton who was famous once, I think. I don't know, it kept me watching and I guess that's kind of a feat when the movie is about people in a white room. Maybe it was a play or something before. It kind of felt like one.

But what I liked about it were these cold as fuck government guys (especially Peter Stormare, everyone's favorite Psycho Swede - think Fargo, Big Lebowski, Prison Break) who like don't even blink at all this atrocity that was going on. It was just all so cold and scientific. It made me think of Nazi Germany and what those scumbags must have been like. And it made me think about how dangerous it is to have the wrong people in charge. So in the end I came away with something. The gore is pretty mild but cold and sudden and effective - more violence than gore. Still, it looks like it was made for nothing and I'm always impressed when someone turns water into wine.

But it was the second flick that fully messed me up. Maybe there's something to that parental advisory thing. I think maybe my fragile, impressionable young mind really wasn't prepared for this film. And I've seen a lot of horror films and this might be the first time I'm truly, genuinely scared. That's why I'm still writing this. I'm afraid to go to bed. This movie will fuck you right up!

Now I do have to warn you. It's French and it has subtitles. And the guy who made it is probably a descendant of the Marquis De Sade. There's a lot of freaky torture. The chick with the Helmet will definitely become a classic Halloween costume. You just need somebody to pull you on a leash. I mean, they literally nailed this fucking thing to her head with these big ass nails.


The story is about these two orphan girls, one of whom was once imprisoned and tortured ala one of those horror stories you hear about when girls are raped and tortured for years and years in a little room (usually by a relative). Well this little girl managed to escape and now she wants revenge. She finds the people who did it to her and she strolls right on in with a shotgun. Blasting away an entire family. Pretty hardcore stuff. It's like this nice family having breakfast and all of a sudden this crazy bitch comes in and blows them all away. I like it. But that's just the beginning.



In the end we learn of this secret religious society and that there's actually a reason for all this torture. They're trying to create martyrs. Now these are martyrs in the traditional, Christian sense of the word, which are people who undergo such suffering and physical torment that they see the light of God. Freaky, right? These guys are trying to induce this state.

The doctors who perform this torture are not just cold and scientific about it, they actually appear as perfectly functional members of society. Which, again, is what got me the most about this film. The fact that anybody, any time can be a deranged, heartless psychopath and you would never know it. And the fact that people really could convince themselves of anything. That in certain circles, there are no such things as sinners. Only saints. And philosophers.

Okay, I'm going to try and go to bed now. But it won't be easy. I recommend watching this one with the lights on.