Martyrs

The first half is a home-invasion revenge film and is well made. Then it stops, and what follows is something else entirely, with a different protagonist and a thesis.

Whether it earns that thesis is the whole argument about it. Pascal Laugier is not being flippant: the film is about an organisation that believes extreme suffering produces knowledge, and it commits to that idea rather than using it as a pretext. The last twenty minutes are close to unwatchable and are also the reason people defend it.

Not a first horror film. Not a second one either. If you watch it, watch it once and do not watch it alone.