The Violence of a Fascination with* a Visible Form (on Martyrs, Cruelty, Horror, Ethics) [*on and vs. with vs. as]

Abstract:This essay argues that Pascal Laugier's 2008 new-extremist horror film Martyrs generates a formal violence coextensive with the aesthetic fascinations that structure it, rendering an account of violence that is monstrative and creative. Reversing theoretical presumptions that horror is a mixed sentiment comprised of fascination and disgust, or that horror names a fascination with violence, the essay positions Martyrs as part of an alternative philosophical lineage that posits a fascination with form itself constitutes a mode of violence. Martyrs cinematically demonstrates the impersonal, non-embodied violence of a fascination with formal possibility, one shared by horror and metaphysics.