Martyrs Lane review: A striking ghost story on Shudder

Horror has the power to shock, disturb and frighten us. But it can just as easily move us and force much-needed introspection. Such is the case with Martyrs Lane, which is coming to horror streamer Shudder on Thursday.

AMC Networks’ own streaming service picked up Martyrs Lane prior to its premiere at Canada’s Fantasia Film Festival, where one of its young stars, Sienna Sayer, received a special mention from Cheval Noir.

The film is a thoughtful, terrifying look at how the past can haunt us and grief cannot simply be buried and forgotten.

You can see Martyrs Lane exclusively on Shudder on September 9th.

Leah, 10, lives in Martyrs Lane with her family in a British rectory. Surrounded by a community and a generally quiet life, Leah still feels certain tensions beyond the everyday family quarrel.

At night, Leah is often woken up by her mother’s inexplicable screams, but she cannot get close to her and understand her. There is a wall between mother and daughter that Leah cannot fully understand.

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When Leah sees a girl with rotting skin and mysterious angel wings appear at night, she begins to unpack past traumas that got stuck with her mother but remain hidden from view. Leah senses that the unspoken is tied to the girl she visits and to her mother’s restrained affection.

Over the course of several nights, the girls play a game in which Leah searches for little clues about what is missing from her mother. Like a family archaeologist, she finds meaning in the everyday items in her home that are sometimes deliberately hidden or even literally buried.

Through the ghost story genre, writer and director Ruth Platt explores the enduring effects of grief and trauma. We are haunted by our past and what we suppress threatens to come back again and again. It affects us and those who are closest to us. It cannot be contained or hidden or forgotten, but needs to be treated one way or another.

The tragic resilience of children

Telling the story of Martyrs Lane from a child’s perspective was a brilliant move. We ask so much of children, sometimes without even realizing it. And they understand so much more than we give them credit for.

Lea is no different. She feels her mother’s distance. And she realizes that something bad has happened. She knows that some topics are taboo too.

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But something is flattened in the process. We jump from Leah’s dreams to her strained relationship with her big sister, to her study of the Bible and her own beliefs to a possibly very real spirit that visits her at night.

This is one of the reasons Leah’s perspective is so valuable. She has not learned to divide herself up like the adults in her life. She experiences everything fully, with no filters, and there are her insights that most of us have lost touch with.

Martyrs Lane offers a powerful portrait of the family struggle and the way that things that are left unsaid don’t just go away.

Catch Martyrs Lane on the Shudder on September 9th.