Martyrs

A ground-breaking French horror film is hacked to pieces and given a Hollywood sheen in this pointless "re-imagining", as it's been described by co-directing brothers Kevin and Michael Goetz. They over-explain the backstory, de-claw the visceral, hardcore shocks and radically change the controversial plot to make it fit acceptable American genre contours and, as a result, they lessen its shattering impact. After escaping from a warehouse where she was held captive and brutalised, Lucie (Troian Bellisario) bides her time in an orphanage until a decade later when, with her best friend Anna (Bailey Noble), she hunts for the family who endlessly tortured her. But Lucie's desire for vengeance is the gateway to even greater hellish debauchery. If you haven't seen Pascal Laugier's 2008 original then this soulless, shiny version might still play as somewhat upsetting and extreme, but it's otherwise a trashy desecration of that powerfully profound masterpiece.