the plot: As a young girl, Lucie (Jampanoi) was kidnapped and abused. After making a daring escape, she found a home at a children’s orphanage, where she befriended Anna (Alaoui). Fifteen years later, Lucie identifies her tormentors in a newspaper photo. Her alleged captors turn out to be a nice suburban family, but that doesn’t stop Lucie from exacting bloody revenge. Anna becomes her unwilling accomplice and the two soon discover that Lucie’s ordeal was not a random act. While Lucie’s stroke of vengeance has allowed her to close a painful chapter of her life, Anna finds that her own ordeal is just beginning.

why it’s good: The French have been pushing the limits of horror for the better part of this decade. Flicks like “Haute Tension,” “A l’Intérieur” and others are almost like endurance tests, both in terms of suspense and gore. “Martyrs” trumps all of its predecessors, though, a bloody shocker that answers subtle questions with utterly gruesome responses. “Martyrs” plays like the end of one movie and the beginning of its sequel stitched together. The beginning of the film feels like a climax, a tense, satisfying ending to Lucie’s story. Laugier only provides the briefest sketches of Lucie’s past, but it’s enough to make her actions shocking, horrific and justifiable. Her strained relationship with Anna helps propel the action into the second half of “Martyrs,” and it’s here that things get really interesting. Questions of spirituality and religious experience are raised, and the concepts that Laugier introduces are far more disturbing and creepy than those personified by the gang of torture-happy rich dudes in the “Hostel” series. “Martyrs” is graphic and brutal, replete with horrifying images that will remain in your head long after the film ends. But Laugier leaves just enough to the imagination to keep things from getting too excessive, which makes the film’s brutality even more haunting. If there’s any one area where “Martyrs” fails, it’s that the strong thematic thread Laugier uses so well in the second half is mostly absent in the beginning. Otherwise, “Martyrs” is powerful and affecting—but the sort of film that requires only one viewing.

why you should own it: “Martyrs” is interesting and worth watching (if the graphic gore doesn’t bother you), but you really only need to see it once. There’s not much in the way of extras on the Weinstein Company’s DVD, though Laugier does provide an introduction for the film. —Larry Clow