Martyrs is a 2008 French-Canadian horror film written and directed by Pascal Laugier. It was first screened during the 2008 Cannes Film Festival at the Marché du Film. The film was released in France publicly on 3 September 2008. The U.S. rights for Martyrs were bought by The Weinstein Company, who released it on DVD in April 2009. A U.S. remake from the producers of Twilight is in the works.
The film has been associated with the New French Extremity movement.
The film begins with a young girl, Lucie (Jessie Pham), as she escapes from a disused abattoir where she has been imprisoned and physically abused for a lengthy period of time. No signs of sexual abuse are identified, and the perpetrators and their motivations remain a mystery. Lucie is placed in an orphanage, where she is befriended by a young girl named Anna (Erika Scott). Anna soon discovers that Lucie believes that she is constantly being terrorized by a ghoulish creature; a horrible, disfigured, emaciated woman (Isabelle Chasse) covered in scars.
look at me, I am the crippled now
could you ever hold me again?
Did you ever look and see what I was
Ever was I known when I was true?
And if this is all I am
Then peace becomes my rotten soul
They split themselves apart
And chase away those adored
they leave behind the binding hope
they chose to fight, in fear of this
I hear a million cries
pleas: only _to be heard_
I see a million smiles
pasted on faces of pain
they are scaling worlds
oblivious to their own
all for fear of being hurt
all for fear of being known
all on their own
never asking on
they fall
martyrs for lies
forget: your prejudice
embrace: me just once
set aside the horrid smiles
fall with me to know this vision
the lights blur and become as one
none are left to fend or restore
and time no longer forces fear
for we know now what we share
Betrayal, they suffered, they're suffering now
Blood spills bones break, what is it for?
Whole lives spent to save us all for mankind
To repay the favor with a spit in the face
The eyes of the martyrs, the eyes of God himself
Are in the ground amongst the flowing blood
We have reduced from this earth
Too many screams have been heard,
(What did they suffer for?)
Too many lives have been lost
(They shall suffer no more)
They rise above, consume and cleanse
On this day, we will scream for them
Step back, look at what we've done
The tears of martyrs will fall and drown
Drown a thousand with a burning rage
This world will become an inferno
BLACK!
Too many screams have been heard,
(What did they suffer for?)
Too many lives have been lost
(They shall suffer no more)
They rise above, consume and cleanse
On this day, we will scream for them
We will scream for them!
We die now, for the sake of them
Our tears will fall, our cries shall be heard
We are the martyrs our cries shall be heard
What is it for?
Chorus
Die for your faith,
die for your faith,
die for your faith,
die for what you believe in
Verse 1
Small group in Cambodia,
gather in the mud brick room,
teachers shares The Word,
then they kneed and pray,
communist soldiers storm the door,
throw the Bible to the floor,
spit upon this book
or you will breath your last
one by one they spit and cry
they're in fear of their lives
a young girl wipes her Jesus dry
shot in the head she dies.
Chorus repeat
Verse 2
Evil man killing the christians
satan gives him the false abuse,
but as he reads The Bible truth,
he converst to the Christian Faith,
taken to the evil leaders, he is a disgrace
thrown into a slime filled pit,
eaten by rats for his new Faith.
Chorus repeat
Verse 3
Preaching man in china,
taken from hias family home,
thrown into a prison cell,
for no criminal reason,
rotting and tortured in his fate,
he will not deny his Faith,
he knows the truth of Christian ways,
no brutal force will make him change.