High Tension (2005, 40%)
Martyrs (2008, 53%)

We recently put up a slightly mis-monikered video called “13 Horror Movies Too Rotten To Miss,” detailing Rotten films that have an Audience Score of at least 60%. One of those movies is High Tension, an extreme French film that was relatively rejected by critics for its unearned, implausible switcheroo in its final minutes. Up to that point, it’s a breakneck flick.

Tonight’s other film that fits this category that we didn’t feature in the video is Martyrs, another exemplar of the French wave of boundary-pushing horror from a decade ago. The performances here are fearless (France seems the best in nurturing these actresses), fully developing Martyrs‘ lucid, sickening themes. Every few years, we get a movie that becomes a horror litmus test to see what depths a viewer is willing to dive through with the genre. This was one of them.