Broken (Unrated)
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Movie Reviews of Broken (Unrated)
Movie Review: Broken
Summary: 3 Stars
This was a good movie. It keeps your interest goin even though it is different, but interesting.Movie Review: Unnecessary.
Summary: 2 Stars
Broken (Simon Boyes and Adam Mason, 2006)
I've watched a depressing number of movies today that have scenes which can only be called unapologetic filler. In the same vein, there were points during Broken that gave me the idea that the entire movie was filler. This is a movie that wanted to be an absorbing look at Stockholm Syndrome through the filter of the Splat Pack (and the Wolf Creek influence is writ large here), but we never connect with the characters enough to make it gripping. The story itself is not enough; we need the people in the story to be people we want to spend time with (either because we sympathize with them or because they repulse us, either will do). That is not the case here.
We start out with Hope (The Devil's Chair's Nadja Brand) out on a date with a guy (Eric Colvin, whose entire film career has been working with Adam Mason) who seems like the perfect date; he's courteous, he's a listener, he knows all the right things to do to make Hope think she's the only woman in the world, or so it would seem listening to her gush to a friend after she gets home. All well and good... until she wakes up tied to a tree, her daughter missing and her needing to injure herself quite radically in order to (she assumes, and we with her) avoid ending up like the corpse on the tree facing her. Okay, so maybe the guy wasn't all snips and snails and puppy dog tails...
Both Brand and Colvin actually do a passable job here (though Abbey Stirling, who plays a third main character introduced halfway through, is somewhat less accomplished), so there's no blaming them for the mess that Broken ends up being. No, for that we have to go to the script, written by Boyes and Mason, who also collaborated on The Devil's Chair. I liked that one, but I liked it for its silliness and willingness to go over the top and parody itself when the material called for it; Broken has no such aspirations. It takes itself deadly seriously, and that is ultimately its downfall. Some humor, however black, would have been entirely welcome to mask the fact that Boyes and Mason, as many filmmakers confronted with overly difficult material do, simply gloss over the really important parts of this story--the events that would actually cause a captive to start siding with her captor. We get this story in snatches, and the events that we need to see to make this movie really worth are time are all happening in between those snatches. It's deadly frustrating, and it's the main reason I had that feeling I mentioned above, that the entire film is actually filler rather than movie. A great disappointment, this one. * ½
Movie Review: A sick and sadistic torture-fest with a few redeeming qualities
Summary: 2 Stars
I put off seeing Broken for a long time, namely due to the fact that as much as I love horror films, I just can't get into the whole torture thing, and for the most part, never have. It isn't the gore or violence that bothers me about the genre, it's just that many of these flicks just present sadism for the sake of being sadistic with little to no other kind of elements thrown in. I knew what I was getting into with Broken, but there was something about it that made it worth a look, and needless to say, Broken delivers in terms of sadistic violence, and delivers even more so in its DVD cover proclamation that it makes the Saw films look like children's fare. Nadja Brand stars as a mother who wakes up to find herself buried inside a box, and soon enough, comes face to face with her abductor (Eric Colvin) who seeks to completely break her. What follows are some purely vile moments that will make you cringe like most horror flicks only wish they could. What little suspense there is just isn't here enough, and were it more present, Broken would have benefited all the better for it. Still, the film does manage to pick up as it reaches its grim denouement, which just may in fact leave you infuriated. Brand comes off as annoying, while Colvin is chilling, and the gore effects are effective. What may be the most notable thing about Broken is that writers/directors Adam Mason and Simon Boyes made this film with basically no budget, and having the lush wilderness as a backdrop added to the atmosphere. Other than those qualities though, Broken is a film that I just couldn't really get into. Those who love all the Saw's, Hostel's, and other torture-porn flicks will eat up Broken, but for the rest of us who have grown tired with the sub-genre, this should definitely be avoided.Movie Review: Anyone else tired of the whole torture sub-genre?
Summary: 2 Stars
If you liked Wolf Creek or more importantly, the Saw franchise, then this might be worth checking out (it "borrows" from both). It's one of those movies that I've been hearing and reading about forever but seemed to never get an official release date... well, thanks to Dimensions new EXTREME (gotta go caps... it is EXTREME after all) DVD line it has been brought across the pond from the UK and released to the masses. Broken is torture horror in it's most base form (although it does attempt some depth, for instance; our heroine is named Hope... yeah, that's a groaner) with any genuine tension or scares replaced with scenes of depravity and cruelty. These setpieces are all done incredibly well and were pretty uncomfortable to watch even for a seasoned horror fan like myself, oddly enough though; there really aren't too many, especially after the first 20 minutes or so which show nearly the same scene (just happening to a different victim) right after the other?! The production values, including the music, camera work, cast, and effects all seem far above the miniscule budget that they had to make this with, which if you watch allot of direct to DVD horror dreck you can certainly appreciate. Although unoriginal and unscary, Broken did succeed at keeping my attention, even after 1 a.m. while being half in the bag... I guess that's gotta be worth something right!? So a solid independent effort that offers enough to warrant a watch but not quite enough to buy for the collection (though the packaging is incredibly slick with a picture of a womans stomach with stitches across the middle that you can pull apart to reveal a razorblade mixed with her intestines... yep it's as gross as it sounds!).Movie Review: A waste of time for everyone involved.
Summary: 2 Stars
Not the worst low budget movie I've seen, but Broken is pretty bad. The acting of the lady playing the main character is not good. I can deal with a bad actress as long as I'm convinced she's doing her best. What I can't deal with is a plot that's totally pointless. *SPOILER* There's a scene where the lady is holding a knife over her sleeping kidnapper, instead of stabbing him in the neck or chest, she gives him a flesh wound on his leg then stumbles off in the forest to allow him to sneak up on her a few moments later. Just about every scene in this film is either unnecessary, pointless, or just lame. The crap in the beginning with the digging the razorblade out of your stomach to free yourself from the tree?!?! That was just stupid. Now I do understand that a crazy guy has to do crazy stuff, but there should also be some sort of crazy logic to it. I mean, why not make her dig the blade out of her bum? That at least would have been just as stupid, but hilarious and worth talking about. Now the last scene could have been sooo much better, but alas this is Broken we're talking about. Who...the hell....screams like that stupid dark haired lady and then regains her composure AFTER getting her tongue cut out?.....Look, that's it, I'm not wasting anymore time on this movie