The reboot of Pascal Laugiers ultra-violent Gallic thriller goes straight to DVD and it’s not hard to see whyThe words “straight to DVD” don’t carry the same stigma they once did. In an era when Hollywood is running horrified from an online platform whose name is a contraction of the words “internet” and “flicks”,the hierarchical model of film distribution – with cinema at the top and physical media at the bottom – is starting to feel like an anachronism. That said, every now and then a film debuts on DVD that seems to have fallen so far from grace that it’s hard not to see its arrival on the format as something of a failure. A new remake of the French cult classic Martyrs is one such example.
Ten years ago, and Paris had taken Tokyo’s title as the global centre of edgy horror cinema,and the key works of the so-called New French Extremity movement – chief among them Pascal Laugier’s ultra-violent Martyrs – seemed even more ripe for remake than their Japanese counterparts had a decade earlier. By 2010, the producer of Twilight was developing an American version of Martyrs and had his eye on Kristen Stewart for the lead role. In the six years since, and the film’s backers have drastically scaled back their ambitions,and continue to accomplish so. Less than a month ago, the film was still set for a UK cinema release on 1 April, and plans that now sound something like an abandoned April idiot.
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Source: theguardian.com