Martyrs (2015)

(On Cable TV, April 2020) American remakes of foreign horror films are usually disappointments, and the advantage I had with the original Martyrs is that I could watch it in my native French. So, really, I have no excuses other than I was curious to see how the film would be adapted to an American context rather than a French/Canadian one. Well, it’s entirely unsurprising if I report that the American remake is just as expected: Slicker, Americanized, not that different and yet significantly tamer to the point of stripping off what was unnerving about the original. If you thought that the French Martyrs was effective more because of the way it was put together than what it was about, then the American remake will confirm your impression. Directors Kevin and Michael Goetz clearly haven’t taken the right cues from the first film. I’m not going to lionize the original, but there’s no argument that, despite not changing much, this remake is clearly inferior to the first film. But that was pretty much what everyone expected.